Real or Not Real
by OddCoupler222
Summary: My name is Peeta Mellark. They say I've been hijacked by the Capitol. I don't know what to believe or what is the truth. The lines between what's real and what is not real have been blurred. Who am I fighting for? Mockingjay in Peeta's point of view.
1. Taken

When I wake, there's darkness, the air feels dry and I think I can taste my own fear and confusion. I'm surrounded in it, closed in, and there's nothing else. I can't even see my hand when I hold it right in front of my face. I blink my eyes and squint more, trying to think. What's happened?

The doctor injected me with something from his syringe and that was all I knew as they wheeled me from the hovercraft into wherever I am now. Katniss is safe. I remember that much. They don't know where she is. Relief comes in, and I hold onto it.

Katniss is safe. She is okay. And I push myself up onto my hands and knees, tentatively reaching around, trying to reach for something in here, anything. It only takes me what I think is minutes to discover that this room contains me and nothing else. I can feel four walls, and I use one to help me stand up because my legs feel like jelly.

The room I'm in is small. If I had to guess, I would say it's a square, maybe six or seven feet on both sides. I hear a loud buzzing sound, then a door opens and closes. Footsteps come closer and closer, and I try to push myself back against the far wall, unsure if I want them to be coming for me or not, because who knows what they'll do.

But my door slides open and light floods in, so bright it hurts my eyes and I have to close them. I feel two people take a hold of me, one on each side, and they start dragging me out. "Where are you taking me? What's going on?" I ask them, and I really just want answers now that I remember what one of them said about me before I was knocked out: President Snow has plans for me.

What plans? Neither of the two men pulling me along say a word, and they take me in an elevator, which is also startlingly white and bright, and when the thing stops and the doors open, they both push me out, and I stumble until I slam into another Peacekeeper, whose hands latch on to my arms and force me to sit in a chair.

When I'm able to get my bearings I just have this one thought: where am I? Until a side door opens and in walks the scent of roses with a wide, bloody smile. Snow. He comes and sits scross from me, folding his legs and putting his hands on his knee, giving me that grin that makes ice run through my veins.

This is the man who prolongs the Hunger Games. This is the man who kills twenty-three children a year. This is the man who tried to end the girl I love's life. I've never felt more disgusted to be in the same room with anyone in my life.

And still, like we're old friends, he gives me his chilling grin. He nods at the Peacekeeper still holding me down, "You may go."

The iron grip on my arms lessens but doesn't disappear, and the man asks, "Are you certain, sir?"

"Oh, yes, quite. Our friend Mr. Mellark here won't do anything to harm me." Now he makes eye contact with me, and I know for a fact that there is no soul living inside of him.

Keeping my voice as affable as he is his, I say, "Well, I wouldn't be so sure about that." I think of everything he's put Katniss through, everything he's put me through. All the innocent deaths he is responsible for. I have killed. Brutus from District Two felt his last breath in my grasp, and there's nothing I can do to change it. He was going to kill me, would try to kill Katniss, and he killed Chaff. If I can kill him out of rage, I think I could possibly muster up some for President Snow.

But he just smiles at me continuously and waves off the Peacekeeper, telling me, "See, Peeta, we here are in a predicament. You and I both are, for the same reason. Katniss Everdeen." I remain silent. I want to know what he knows about her and what's going on. But I won't ask. I won't ask this man for a thing. "The rebel movement is in full swing now. It's not your fault, it's hers, but she stuck you in the cross fire. I guess that's the type of girl she is."

"Shut up," I grit out, because how dare he say anything bad about _anyone_, let alone Katniss?

He leans back, "My, my, keep a civil tongue, young man. The point is, the rebellion will lose eventually. Compare their numbers, their equipment, their experience to that of us here in the Capitol. They will lose."

"You don't know that," I tell him, before I can make myself shut up. Stop talking to the man, Peeta. Shut your mouth. Don't give him a thing. Don't give him even a small piece of you.

Now his smile just grows and takes on a new glint, "Oh, but they will lose. Miserably and hard, with many casualties. And even those in charge who don't die in combat, will be brought down and treated as an example in front of the entire nation. Do you care to guess how I make examples of traitors to Panem, Peeta?" Snow asks me, and I make myself stay remote as stone. Not even a blink, while I picture Gale being whipped, being _made an example of_.

Snow continues, "I'm sure you have an idea. And guess who is at the very heart of the rebellion, who will be receiving the harshest of punishments we here in the Capitol can offer?" With the malicious glint in his eye, my heart starts beating ferociously and terror weighs down in my stomach, and I can tell he knows that I know, but he says it anyway, "Katniss Everdeen."

When he crosses his arms, I know he's just made me a deal, and he's waiting for an answer. If I do what he wants me to, he'll spare Katniss her punishment should the rebellion fail. Now, there is no question of what I have to do. Against my best wishes, against every part of my being saying to not trust this man, I swallow hard, and think of my one goal: keep Katniss alive.

Facts come to my attention: I don't know exactly what's going on here. I know that I'm not in the arena anymore. But it's clear that the Games aren't over. And just like in the other two Games, I'll do anything to protect her. Even if it means conspiring with this sorry, pathetic excuse for a man. My voice barely above a whisper, I ask, "What do you want?"

I think his smile gets impossibly bigger as he says, "I knew you would see it my way." But then he gets down to business, "A call for a cease-fire, from you. You will ask Katniss, reaching out to the rebels as a whole, for a halt in this ridiculous war."

Taking a few deep breaths, I think about what this means. Giving my apparent allegiance to Snow and the Capitol, I'm telling all of those worn down, depressed, angry people the idea that I want them to have to stay in their stagnant lives. Would Katniss want that, wherever she is? Stalling for time before I agree to it, I speak slowly, "And in return, you would give Katniss complete amenity for her … treason? Not a hair on her head will be touched if you bring her in?"

"_When_ she is brought in, and yes, that is exactly what I am saying." He is quiet for a minute, surely expecting my immediate agreement, which I am about to give to him, when he adds on, "Do you need more incentive? Well, fine. I'll even offer immunity to that mentor of yours, though I have no idea why you would want to give it to him anyway."

"What? Why?" I ask, and I hate myself for me being so curious. I want to stop playing into him, but I can't.

He knows he has me now, and he tells me, "We haven't gotten much out of Johanna Mason – yet – but we have got named of those involved. Haymitch Abernathy doesn't give a damn about you or Katniss, Peeta. He tried to get her out, not because you asked him to and not because he cared about her, but because of the rebel movement. In fact, you were both kept in the dark because he feared Katniss couldn't handle the pressure."

So Haymitch was working for the rebels all along. I did have those inklings before. But the idea that Haymitch doesn't care for either Katniss or me at all, that he would have just sacrificed us without batting an eye gives me pause. I want to reassure myself that Snow is lying to me. But, thinking of Haymitch, I wouldn't put this all past him. Even so. "Katniss and Haymitch will not be punished for anything they do or have done." He narrows his eyes at me, and I add on, "I'll do whatever you want."

His smile is slowly spreading across his face, and I know I couldn't have done a more dangerous deal if he made me sign it in blood. "Excellent." He stands, "You'll be guest starring tonight on in interview with Caesar Flickerman, during which you will call for a cease-fire." Then he walks to me, turning my chair to face a screen in the corner of the room.

With the tap of his finger on a remote, it turns on and starts to play, "Watch," he tells me, "I understand you will protect her at any cost, and I understand you thought she was doing the same for you. But two days ago, she was the one who blew out the arena, knowing what could happen to you."

Confused, I want to ask him just what the heck he's talking about, but I don't. Instead, I just watch, as he skips to the end of the Games. I see Johanna nearly kill her trying to cut out her tracking device. Then I watch with my heart in my throat while Katniss stumbles around, trying to get to me. Calling my name. And then she does it. She wraps Beetee's wire around her arrow and shoots it into the force field, blowing it up, before the screen goes to black.

Snow's words are true. She did do it. But he's wrong as to why. And that tape won't convince me otherwise. I say nothing to him, and he just shuts off the television. "Be silent, be stoic. But you can't deny what you saw. Now, as a _reward_ to you for being such a good boy today, I'll have a gift delivered here after I leave."

He walks to the door and gestures for me to remain seated, "You'll be staying in here until I direct my Peacekeepers to come get you for the interview tonight. Remember Peeta, cease-fire. And if you back out on this deal, the consequences will be disastrous. For you, and for Katniss."

And then he leaves. I don't know if I should feel good or bad about what I did, but either way, I do feel dirty. And a gift? What the heck does he mean, he's giving me a gift? I don't want… my thoughts trail off as the door opens and I don't know if I've ever been happier to see someone, excepting Katniss.

Because Portia is standing here, in the room, looking around, disoriented. A smile breaks out over my own face and I push myself up, running to her and banding my arms around her, but the second I touch her, she starts screaming, and slapping her arms around.

Immediately, I drop my arms "Portia, you're alive! You're…" Then my grin fades, "you're here."

And suddenly I am not so happy. Because her screams fade and she's crying, breaking down in sobs, her eyes squeezed shut, trying to ward me off. She is here, in Snow's custody, just as I am. Her golden dyed skin is strangely pale, and she's always been slender, but for… I'm guessing at least a week, she's been starving. A few pounds are already falling off of her, and her beautiful face is becoming hollowed out.

All because of me. Because she was my stylist. My breath catches and I want to join in with her crying, but I don't. As gently as I can, as if I was approaching a scared animal, I reach out, trying to catch her flailing hands. Hands that were always flawlessly done and manicured, but now have chipped polish and short nails. Keeping my voice quiet, I capture her hands in a gentle but firm hold, stopping her hitting.

"Portia. Open your eyes. It's okay. It's me, Peeta, and I would never, ever hurt you." With my words, her struggling stops but she still can't bring herself to stop crying or open her eyes. I rub my thumbs over the backs of her hands, speaking quietly, "Hey, you know, you look stunning even now. After all you've been though. Right now, as presentable as always."

The words I've told her before, only a week ago though it feels like a lifetime, ring through, and she peeps open an eye. Then both of them pop wide open, and there's this moment on her face, a moment of total elation before it crumples, and she throws her arms around my neck, holding on tight and burying her face in my shoulder, saying repeatedly, "It's you, it's really you."

Drawing my hand up and down her back, I feel my own tears drip out now, falling on her hair, and I feel like I'm going to be choked with emotion, "It's me. I'm here right now. It's okay."

And then we're both silent, just holding on, just… existing. Interrupting this momentary peace, I hear her voice, thick with tears, say, "They killed him. Cinna. They took him into interrogation the day Katniss blew up the arena, and he never came back."

I feel her start to shake again with tears and her words are broken when she says, "He loved me, Peeta, he did. He… we… they kept us in those dark rooms, right next to each other and he explained." She breaks off and her tears are fast and hard now, as they were before.

I want to stroke my hand down her waterfall of dark hair but I can't say anything to try to cheer her up. Look where we are. Look what happened to Cinna. What is there to comfort her with when there is no more comfort left to be had? The love of her life just died. It's commendable that she's holding up this well.

After a while, there's a brisk knocking on the door before it barges open and a Peacekeeper is there, holding one of the large, tall, clothing bags I associate with Portia. Immediately, I feel her stiffen as he walks closer, and I disengage myself from her, and step in front, blocking him from her view. He glares at us and throws the clothes over the back of the chair I was sitting on earlier, and he snarls, "Start getting ready."

And then he leaves, and Portia composes herself enough to ask, "Get ready for what?"

So I explain to her, about Caesar Flickerman, about trying to keep Katniss safe, about the cease-fire. While taking everything in, she nods, and breathes in deeply through her nose, and out her mouth, and giving me a look in the eye that makes me think of the woman I saw before the arena, "Well, then, let's make you pretty."

She starts with my hair, getting it brushed then curling it, then dabs on my makeup, covering up all the bruises there. I think she's glad they've brought her in to do this job. To distract her from what's going on, to make her remember better times. If that's the case, then I can dredge up a semblance of happiness, too. And then her fingers still as they comb through my hair, styling it to perfection.

Quietly, she says, "He was devastated when they brought me in. I've been here since the day after you went into the arena. Cinna… he was missing ever since he took Katniss to be brought up into the Games. When he heard me in the room next to him, he was so upset. He told me that all he had done, everything he had kept a secret from me, it was to protect me from ending up here. But I guess it didn't work." She finishes with a dry laugh, before I hear her break down again.

I reach up and take her hands in mine, and they tremble. I wish there was anything I could do to make her feel better, and she pushes on, her cries breaking her words up, "It's just… I keep thinking about how I treated him in his last few days, and how I wouldn't even talk to him and I haven't told him that I loved him in months and months and … and he did so much to try to protect me and all I ever did was throw it in his face. He _died_ not knowing that I still loved him, knowing that I thought he didn't really love me."

Now I stand, because this is something I can comfort, and I look closely at her, putting my hand under her chin and getting her to look up at me through her watery eyes, "Hey, listen to me. Cinna knew what he was signing up for when you broke up with him. He understood you, and he understood why you did it, I think you can bet on that. But you know what you can take to the bank, any day of the week? He knew you loved him, Portia. Anyone could see it."

I hope after I've served President Snow's agenda, after he kills me, Katniss will know that I loved her. How could she not? But I still want someone to reinforce it, the way I am now to my best friend. She reaches up and takes my face in her hands, "Thank you, Peeta. I'm so sorry you're in the middle of all of this."

There's no way I can stop a laugh from rumbling through my chest, out of my mouth, "Me? You're sorry I'm in the middle of this?"

I think of every step of this insane journey, of both of the Hunger Games, the Victory Tour, the rebel army finding their feet and getting ranks, and how we're now both captured in Capitol custody. It's not funny at all. As in, it's the least "funny" situation I've ever been in. And it all just seems like it's some ridiculous, elaborate joke, and I just can't stop myself from this crazy laughter.

She looks so concerned for me, and I try to explain – well, as best I can, with my senseless thought process – "It's just… you're sorry to me… and I'm the one who pulled you into all of this, being in love with Katniss and all. I just it's so unfunny!"

I can tell she thinks I've gone temporarily insane, but she sits me down and continues doing her work with my hair until I finally manage to sober up. Then there's another pounding on the door, and a voice barks out, "Ten minutes!"

Portia looks at me and reaches for the clothes we've been provided with, and while I strip and she redresses me in a suit. I look at myself in the mirror, "I don't look nearly as good as I do in a Portia original."

"No," she agrees, and runs her hands over my shoulders and the suit, "But you still clean up well, regardless of who designed the fabric."

Another heart pounding knock, followed by the proclamation, "Five minutes!" Starts Portia's crying again. I wish I didn't know why. But I do, and I want to follow suit. But I guess she can tell, because she holds my face in her hands, "Don't. You'll ruin your makeup. Just let me do it for the both of us, please."

Looking me in the eye, she says, "Peeta… usually, I would tell you don't be a hero. I would tell you to look out for Peeta, because I couldn't stand seeing something happen to you. But here, now, it's all changed. Don't let what Cinna did or what Katniss is doing happen in vain. We… we probably won't ever see each other again, and no matter what happens, you'll always be my beautiful boy from District Twelve, and I'll always be your slightly overemotional stylist."

"No," I correct, "You'll always be my best friend. And the woman I love second most in this world."

She sniffles, "Same goes. Only, you know, you're a boy. No, you're a man now. Look at you." She pushes herself up on her tippy toes and brushes a kiss across my cheek, then repeats the move against my lips. It's not romantic but it's not platonic, because it means so much more than that.

When it ends, it's all I can do to wrap my arms around her and hold myself back from crying. Because she's right. This is probably the last time we'll ever see each other in this life, and it's not like when I thought I would die in the arena; it's both of our lives, on a speeding train, running toward our doom.

Then the Peacekeeper barges back in, and pulls her away from me. Her words ring with finality with her last word to me, "Goodbye."

"Goodbye, Portia." I say back, and then we're led through different doors.

* * *

><p><strong>The long awaited (kind of!) story is here! I love Mockingjay and I am really excited to start it. This story is going to be updated every 3 days, so... yeah. Sorry, first day of classes early in the morning. Not so eloquent at the moment. <strong>


	2. Planting the Seeds

I'm led out of the room, down a hallway, and into a study. There are books lining the walls, and a large desk in one end of the room. From what I've seen so far, I think we're all being held in some sort of private President Snow quarters in the Capitol.

When he shuts the door behind me, I see Caesar standing off near a pair of chairs set up for us, and talking to a camera crew. He looks at me uneasily, and I ask, "Where is the audience?"

"There won't be one," he tells me, and his voice is serious right now. I've never heard him speak like this, in that tone.

I had thought – a big part of me had thought – that President Snow would want this on live air. But there's no sign here, saying that it's playing live. No audience, none of the extra stage hands. Just the essentials. And then I understand. Snow doesn't want to air this video immediately after the rebels have Katniss, right when they're gearing up. He wants it to use when he starts to view them as a real, living, beating heart threat. A threat that he sees affecting the Capitol citizens.

I take this to mean he plans on having me dead by the time that happens. Caesar makes eye contact with me and I walk toward the chairs. This isn't Caesar Flickerman who is going to sympathize with in-love-and-expecting-a-baby Peeta. This is Caesar Flickerman, who is taking his side in a war, and his side is with President Snow.

The real Caesar Flickerman. The real Caesar Flickerman who is Snow's lackey. The real Caesar Flickerman who knows probably as much as Snow does with what's going on in the other districts, the rebellion, and is fighting to keep them down. The real Caesar Flickerman who gets fame, money, and popularity from the Hunger Games, and would never want them to end.

The real Caesar Flickerman disgusts me as much as Snow does. And I am no prize to him, either, that much is clear to see in his eyes. For some ridiculous reason, I feel betrayed. I made first-ever declarations of love on his stage. He comforted me when he thought I was in emotional pain. We had a back and forth, an easiness, when we talked, but I guess it was all as fake as his hair and his white teeth.

But then a set crew worker moves me to sit in a seat, and Caesar takes his place across from me, and the cameraman counts, "Filming in three… two… one!"

He doesn't give me his cheesy smile at the start of this interview, though, like he normally does, but a serious look, and I can tell he knows just how much I think of him. "So… Peeta… welcome back."

Caesar Flickerman just had to search for what to say to me. A first. With the camera rolling, focused on me, it's easy to slip into my old, on-air persona, and I force myself to smile, "I bet you thought you'd done your last interview with me, Caesar." I reply. _I bet you thought you were done with Katniss, too, and she's alive and supporting the people gunning to see to it that your main job is done and over with. _

"I confess, I did. The night before the Quarter Quell… well, who ever thought we'd see you again?" His expression is the same one he always wears on camera, but his eyes tell me a whole different story. It wasn't just that he "thought" he would never see me again. It was also that he "hoped."

I let myself frown, "It wasn't part of my plan, that's for sure."

He leans in to get a closer look at me, and appear like he's sympathetic. The best showman in the world, I think, hating him as he says, "I think it was clear to all of us what your plan was. To sacrifice yourself in the arena so that Katniss Everdeen and your child could survive."

Minus the child part, that's the truth. Looking away from him and down at the arm of the chair, bringing my hand up to trace patterns on it, I wonder what kind of chair Katniss is sitting in right now. Or if she'll watch this and know why I'm doing what I'm doing. "That was it. Clear and simple." But it's not simple at all. Not in the bigger picture, thinking of Finnick and Johanna and Beetee and anyone else who was in on the plan, "But other people had plans as well."

I think of Ami, the woman from Six, who jumped in front of those muttation monkeys for me. Of Mags, who sacrificed herself so Katniss, myself, and Finnick could have a chance. Of Haymitch, who… well, is Haymitch.

Caesar lets me stew in my thoughts for a moment before saying, "Why don't you tell us about that last night in the arena? Help us sort a few things out."

I don't even have to look at him to know what he really wants. He wants me to relive my time there. Well, I'll do more than that. I'll give the first ever _real_ account of what it's like in an arena on national television. They can watch the Games all they want, but no one here in the Capitol will never know what it's like to be there. So I force myself into the still-fresh memories of only three days ago.

But it's difficult, and the more I talk about what I felt like being in that arena on the last day, the more difficult it is for me to think clearly. Because he has me thinking about Katniss, and what could have happened to her after the rebels came and took her away, what became of her in the days since. Where she is. Wondering if she's unharmed, and I desperately wish I could have been rescued with her, just to ensure that.

It's that thought that makes me emotional, makes me yell out, "I should have never let them separate us! That's when I lost her." I lost her and now I'll never be getting her back. And I can only hope it's because _I'll_ be the one to die.

I can hear the edge in Caesar's voice, the satisfaction at my outburst, the slight lilt of taunting in it when he pushes on, "When you stayed at the lightning tree, and she and Johanna Mason took the coil of wire to the water."

And damn it, I let it get to me, "I didn't want to! I couldn't argue with Beetee without indicating we were about to break away from the alliance." Please, Katniss, know that I desperately didn't want to leave you alone. I want to go with you. Then my memory starts to get a bit fuzzy, I think the explosion rattled me and made my thoughts fragment as I try to piece it together. "When that wire was cut, everything just went insane. I can only remember bits and pieces. Trying to find her. Watching Brutus kill Chaff. Killing Brutus myself. I know she was calling my name. Then the lightning bolt hit the tree, and the force field around the arena…" I can't put it on Katniss, I just can't, not on television, not now, "Blew out."

He narrows his eyes at me, "Katniss blew it out, Peeta. You've seen the footage."

He's trying to put all the blame on Katniss, to make her look like a guilty party to everyone, so that even if Snow sticks to our agreement about not harming her, she'll still be hated. An outcast. I won't let that happen. "She didn't know what she was doing. None of us could follow Beetee's plan." And I know she really didn't even have a clue about the possibility of a rebel plot earlier in the Games. I _know_ that. "You can see her trying to figure out what to do with that wire."

Caesar almost unnoticeably lifts a brow at me, "All right. It just looks suspicious. As if she was a part of the rebels' plan all along."

I've had enough of this. Of Caesar's insinuations, and just of Caesar Flickerman in general. There are times when I've thought I can excuse the Capitol citizens for their love of the Games. Thinking, maybe they really just don't know any better; this is what they grew up with, what they've always known. But this man… he knows the truth, and he holds a position where he could actually do something about it, and he doesn't.

Anger singes through me, and I jump up, pinning him into his chair, and screaming, "Really? And was it part of her plan for Johanna to nearly kill her? For that electric shock to paralyze her? To trigger the bombing? She didn't know, Caesar! Neither of us knew anything except that we were trying to keep each other alive!"

I can see the fear in his eyes, the real, honest terror in his eyes, before he collects himself and raises a hand to push me back. I've never been so satisfied with seeing someone be scared before, and he tries to go farther back than the chair will allow when he says, "Okay, Peeta. I believe you."

"Okay." I tell him, glaring, but I back off before Snow or his Peacekeepers can come out and make me back off. Suddenly feeling exhausted, which I know is ridiculous because I've spent the past two days unconscious, I fall back down into my chair.

Caesar takes a minute to compose himself, then tries to light another fuse, "What about your mentor, Haymitch Abernathy?"

"I don't know what Haymitch knew," I tell him immediately. Because I don't _know_ for sure… all I know is what President Snow told me. _Haymitch Abernathy doesn't give a damn about you or Katniss, Peeta. He tried to get her out, not because you asked him to and not because he cared about her_. But just because someone like Snow tells me that, it doesn't make it true.

But Caesar pushes, "Could he have been part of the conspiracy?"

My voice is tight when I respond, "He never mentioned it."

"What does your heart tell you?" he asks and leans forward again. He doesn't want another rise out of me, I can tell. What he wants is for me to put blame on Haymitch so he can be ostracized from society if the rebellion fails, just like Katniss. But even if I knew for sure that Snow's words about him were true, I still love him. And I won't give him up. "That I shouldn't have trusted him. That's all."

I look back down at my chair, and Caesar reaches over and puts his hand on my shoulder, looking comforting on camera, but squeezing hard, "We can stop now if you want."

He's giving me an option here. Making a deal. I can back down now, not call for a cease-fire and let the rebels continue to know I am on their side, "Was there more to discuss?" I ask, thinking the decision over.

His hand lets up it's squeeze, and I know that he took my last statement as an answer that I was reneging on the deal. But as he says, "I was going to ask your thoughts on the war, but if you're too upset…" I know.

Regardless of whether or not I hope the rebels can succeed in trying to obtain a better life for the future of Panem, I have to make myself think of the negatives. Because what if they don't? What will happen to Katniss? Haymitch? I can't just hang them out to dry, "Oh, I'm not too upset to answer that." Here goes. Direct audience contact. Convince Snow, really convince him. "I want everyone watching – whether you're on the Capitol or the rebel side – to stop for just a moment and think about what this war could mean. For human beings. We almost went extinct fighting one another before. Now our numbers are even fewer. Our conditions are more tenuous. Is this really what we want to do? Kill ourselves off completely? In the hopes that – what? some decent species will inherit the smoking remains of the earth?"

And I think I made it sound pretty good. Despite the fact that I'm on the opposing opinion of what I said, my words _are_ true, and they sound exactly like what I would say if I were in support of a cease-fire motion.

But Caesar, and apparently Snow, who undoubtedly is behind several of Caesar's statements and motions, prods, "I don't really… I'm not sure I'm following…"

They want more from me. To be more believable, just like he wanted Katniss to do on the Victory Tour. I hold out my hands in a sign of pleading, "We can't fight one another, Caesar. There won't be enough of us left to keep going. If everyone doesn't lay down their weapons – and I mean as in _very soon_ – it's all over anyway." Everyone, including and especially, the Capitol.

I know I've done a job of convincing Snow this is what I really want when Caesar is silent for a minute, then allows, "So… you're calling for a cease-fire?"

No. I want them to fight for their rights and freedom. I'll give my own life for it. "Yes. I'm calling for a cease-fire." And now I join the ranks of being disgusting, just like President Snow and Caesar Flickerman. I don't think I can take being here for much longer, "Now why don't we ask the guards to take me back to my quarters," I almost end my question there, but I think of the dark, small room that I woke up in in fear, but I don't want Katniss to worry about me. I don't want anyone, my family or Haymitch, if he does care, to worry, so I finish with, "So I can build another hundred card houses?"

Caesar looks away from me and into the camera, ending the segment, then gets up and leave without sparing me another look. The same Peacekeeper, who I now realize is incredibly large – like almost a full head taller than me and, even with the training I've done in the past few months, filling out my chest and broadening my shoulders, he has much larger muscles than I do.

The big guy grabs my arm and makes me stand, then presses his hand to his ear, which I now see has some sort of speaking device on it, then he says, "Yes. Yes, sir, I understand. I'll bring him right there."

He leads me out of the room, into the elevator, and we go down, down, down, down, into a _second_ basement, because obviously one isn't enough. With his hand rough on my arm, he pulls me quickly along and my heart is racing because this isn't where I came from before, with all of the dark rooms lined up.

He's leading me to a room, with a glass door, and all I can see in there is a hospital bed set up in the middle of the room. It's time for me to die. The big Peacekeeper yanks open the door and wrenches me in, and I don't even try to struggle. Where would I go if I got away? _Maybe_ out the door before another Peacekeeper brought me back.

While they strap me in, I think, they're going to inject me with something lethal. I close my eyes and try to picture Katniss in my mind. First, I get images of Haymitch – and I feel a sense of betrayal, but I try to ward it off – then Portia, and I hope whatever happens to her here will be quick and painless. Then there's my family – mom, dad, Thyler and Haylee, a small, little baby, and Luc, and I hope all of them know that I love them. Then I settle on an image of Katniss and keep her there, because I want this face to be the last thing I see before I die.

But then the Peacekeeper leaves and I hear Dr. Cavanaugh's voice as he asks, "Should we start with operation Hijack-the-Fire?"

What? I'm not some great secret code detector, but that doesn't sound like a death sentence. It sounds like something different entirely. I flip my eyes open, curiosity and dread mingling inside of me when I see President Snow also in the room, standing with my doctor.

"No," Snow says, "He's not quite ready for that." Oh, god. _What do they want to do with me?_ Then he continues, and orders in a quiet hissing whisper, but I still barely manage to catch it, "We can't just jump in with stuff like that. We start first with someone lighter, but who will still pack a punch. The mentor. Don't go for building hatred – just something to open the flood gates a little."

Dr. Cavanaugh nods, and slides on some gloves, "You got it, sir."

Snow makes eye contact with me and walks out of the room, and then I look at the doctor, panic making me struggle now against these restraints that are holding my hands and feet firmly in place. What did he mean? What did he mean?

The doctor walks to me and takes a pair of scissors, cutting up the sleeve of my shirt, so my forearm is bared, "Welcome to conditioning, Peeta."

"Conditioning for what?" I ask, and I can hear the fear in my own voice.

All he does in response is give me a small grin, then reaches down, and measures some fluid into a syringe, holding it up to the light. "You're familiar with this, I believe."

He holds it closer to me, and it clicks inside of me, "Tracker jacker venom." I don't know how I know – I was stung before, but I never actually saw the real venom.

"Correct, young man." He swabs my arm, "Just a little – not even as much as a jacker will deposit in you after a sting. _Just _enough to make you miserable. Not to hallucinate, though, for which you should thank me. I'll bet you remember how terrible you felt after that ordeal."

I do. Closing my eyes, I wait. If I lived through the real stings, I can live though this. Then he injects it, and it only takes moments for it to lace through my veins and bring me to a place that I think it somewhere between reality and a hallucination, and then Haymitch's face is projected in front of me.

When he's drinking, at reapings and other Capitol functions, and then there's the doctor's voice in my ear, whispering so closely that it's like it's in my head, "Look at him. All he cares about is drinking. That's all he's ever cared about. Hiding from what's really going on, what's really important."

I struggle to talk back, fighting to get out the words, "No. No, he knows what's going on, he always does. Even when he's drinking."

Then the images switch, to show pictures of him with me and Katniss, and with all the victors I had thought he might have been in cahoots with before, "Look at him with you two, smiling, pretending to care. He was really on _their_ side all along. He left you to die."

But I wanted him to. I asked him to. This time the words don't make it any farther than my head, and it's too difficult to do anything but sit here and listen, and the images repeat over and over and over and over again, constantly playing with this voice, that somehow interlaces with my own Peeta voice, until it's me saying these words to myself.

Haymitch never cared. He doesn't care. He left me to die. Haymitch never cared. He doesn't care. He left me to die. Haymitch never cared. He doesn't care. He left me to die. Haymitch never cared. He doesn't care. He left me to die. Haymitch never cared. He doesn't care. He left me to die. Haymitch never cared. He doesn't care. He left me to die. Haymitch never cared. He doesn't care. He left me to die.

I don't know how much longer it is before my restraints are let loose, but I'm too tired and too weak and too disoriented to care. I can't even keep my head up when I'm dragged back, into the elevator, down the hall, into the dark room.

Haymitch never cared. He doesn't care. He left me to die.

When they throw me into the room, I collapse immediately, and it takes hours for that voice to fade in my head. It's then that I realize two of my fingers can't stop twitching, probably from the near-constant small doses of the venom.

And even as the voice does eventually leave my own internal Peeta voice alone, I curl into a ball. I wanted Haymitch to let me die. But I can't believe he left me here in the Capitol.

* * *

><p><strong>I am so sorry about my lack of updating. I swear, fu****ng collegescrews up my computer, and now I'm waiting to have a new one shipped to me. I'm getting this chapter up from my friend's iPhone. Pain in the ass. <strong>

**Anyway. Sorry about my anger and profanity. I do hope you enjoyed this chapter!**


	3. Whitewash The Truth

The next time I open my eyes, my fingers are still twitching, and my bones and muscles and joints just _ache_. I don't move this time. I just lay here, with my cheek pressed against the cold floor. My thoughts feel fuzzy when they come to me, and I don't know how long it is that I lay prone here, until I hear the buzzing the means the door at the end of this hallway is opening.

They're coming for me again, they have to be, but I don't have it in me to move. Where would I go, anyway? I'm trapped in here, in this cage.

But as they come closer, I hear it: screaming. In pain, recently been hurt, screaming, and then I feel the vibrations as the door in the room next to me is opened, the screamer deposited, and the doors shut. They walk away. But the screams continue. For a long time. So long, that I'm really worried about whoever it is over there, because they sound like they're really in agony. What if it's too much for them to handle? What if… they die?

I make myself move and crawl over to the wall shared by me and this person, and curl my hand into a painful fist and pound on the wall. The screaming pauses, and I hear panting, and I say, "Are you all right?"

And then I close my eyes and curse myself, because _obviously_ this girl isn't all right. No one here is all right, just take a look around. Oh, wait, you can't because it's too dark to see anything.

After a few minutes, I hear, "Peeta?"

"Johanna?" I feel like I've been sucker punched. Whatever happened to her, to cause this screaming, it was worse than what I've gotten so far. "Johanna, what happened to you?"

"They do things here, that mess with your head, and your body, and…" She breaks off and takes a few deep breaths before settling back down and muttering in a voice that sounds just like the Johanna I knew in the arena, "I can't _believe_ they just left us."

Me, neither. Going against the feeling in the pit of my stomach, I try to provide her any semblance of comfort she could have in this place, "Maybe they had to." I just hope they come back for us, before it's too late. If not for me, at least for Johanna; she was a big part in their plans, right? So why leave her here?

Haymitch never cared. He doesn't care. He left me to die.

"Shut up," I whisper to myself, and Johanna's panicked breathing slows into a rhythm and I think she's lost consciousness.

I settle myself against the wall, and then the buzzing comes again. This time, the footsteps come directly to my cell. It's Big Guy, that same humongous Peacekeeper as yesterday. Well, I think it was yesterday. I'm not entirely certain of how much time has been passing, and I have no way to tell.

He pulls me up, and all of the movement sets my teeth on edge. The venom is still in my system, making every tiny change in position or direction I'm in brings a _zing_ of pain. He brings me back to the room, and this time, just testing it out, I wiggle my arms a little in his grasp, seeing how hard it would be to get away if I were to really try.

He just tightens his grip, and I know that I won't be able to get away no matter what. So I let him strap me into the chair and just hope to god it's nothing worse than yesterday. Big Guy just walks away to stand in the corner and Cavanaugh walks over to me, again with a vile and a syringe in hand.

And then my mind starts to blur. He doesn't show me images this time, but puts in a whole lot more venom. Just enough so that I can see in the back of my mind – my family dying, screaming, then Katniss, her screaming for me. _Peeta! Peeta! Peeta!_ But I can't help her and I try to reach out to her, to all of them, but I'm strapped in and my hands don't move, and I feel like I can't breathe and I need to help them all, but I can't get to them, and my hands are strapped, and I can hear myself screaming to them, but they never answer.

And then there's no more holds on my hands and feet and I wake up in the darkness of my room.

It happens every day – I think it's daily, anyway, I can't be sure. More and more venom every single time, and it just hurts to much after the first week that the pain in my entire being when I move, even when I writhe on the floor of my cell, even when Johanna and I have snippets of conversation, it _kills_ to move just that much.

Disorientation makes the room spin every time Big Guy Peacekeeper comes to escort me back and forth from my holding room to the holding chair, and after the first few times that I vomit, I learn to close my eyes while he drags me along. It's like I'm not even living anymore. Just this breathing lump who feels pain.

Then one day, while I'm strapped in, letting my head hang down on my shoulder because it's truly too much effort to keep up, Cavanaugh stands in front of me, while talking to someone else. "I think he might be ready for the beginning." He says.

"Excellent. Move him on to Phase Two," the other voice orders.

It's Snow, I realize now, but I can't even muster up enough energy to look at him. It wouldn't do anything anyway. My right foot jerks against the strap it's in, and all of my fingers tap. It's the only movements I can do without making me cringe in agony, and that's only because I have absolutely no control over it. I guess it's one of the by-products of the venom.

Phase Two. How can it be any worse than the "phase" I've been in for the past… however long. It feels like months, but I know it can't have been. Cavanaugh looks at me and I manage to croak out, "You were right. I do wish I was dead." What I wish for even more is that the rebels would just storm this place, but if I think realistically – will that happen before I die here?

"You haven't gone through anything yet," he assures me, and picks up a remote, directing my gaze to the wall where the scene plays. The last minute of the televised Games, where Katniss shot the wire and everything blew up. I watch as it plays, and then replays, and I just feel empty. He watches me closely, then gets in front of my face.

"Today," he tells me, "You're going to learn a lesson of actions and consequences. Specifically, Katniss Everdeen's actions and consequences. I want you to keep her face in your mind –" he pauses the film on her face, " – when you see what you are going to see. But before we get around to that…"

He reaches down and I feel the now-so-familiar pressure as he slides the needle into my arm, and releases the venom. It's less than usual, I can tell because when the metal is gone from my vein, my blood doesn't start to rush and I don't start fading in and out while hearing things in my mind. Instead, I look around the room and everything is hazy. Like there's a coat of paint, just faintly translucent, around everything.

In the back of my mind, I hear screams. It's not enough for me to distinguish who it is or what they're saying, but it's enough to confuse me, to make my heart beat faster, to scare me. Cavanaugh's voice is here, too, and it sounds like it's coming from where the screams are, but I know it can't be, not inside my head. Right?

_Katniss Everdeen's actions and consequences, Peeta. Katniss. Everdeen._ His voice doesn't go away, either, while the footage of the Games blurs into obscurity. _Katniss Everdeen shot that arrow, and with it blew up the arena. But she also blew up District Twelve._

And then the images in front of my eyes show fires. An aerial shot of my District, going up in flames. Then a close-up of the Seam, and then the bakery. It's burning, the sign that reads 'Mellark's" over the door hangs on by one hinge and inside there's an inferno. My pulse is scrambling and I can feel it and I think I'm going to be sick.

No, I was actually just sick and I feel the vomit drip down my chin, and the images of the bakery burning continue, and I shake my head, telling myself, "This isn't real. This is the venom. This is not real."

But Cavanaugh's voice is back, bringing horror with it when he says, "Oh, it is very real, Peeta. When Katniss shot that arrow, she simultaneously, single-handedly blew up your bakery. With your entire family inside of it."

And I'm struggling now, trying to free myself from these restraints because I need to do _something_. Anything. And when I feel my stomach clench and tears sting my eyes, I scream out, "You're lying! My family is alive!"

"I'm afraid not," he tells me and then the image switches from the fire and is replaced with a picture of my parents. A sob catches in my throat as he does something with the film and makes it so the flames eat the picture up. "Your parents. Gone."

Mom. Dad, who taught me everything I ever knew, "No," I whisper while wretchedness grips me and I can't even think anymore because they're my _family_ and this can't be true, but it has to be. That burning bakery is so real I can almost taste it, smell the bread burning inside and my family was in there and they're not breathing and tears blur my eyes when the image switches again, and this time it's, "Luc."

My voice breaks, and I stare at the smiling picture of my brother, waving at the camera. This is from the interview with friends and family of the Final Eight from last year and he was so happy and alive and I try to reach my hand out to him, screaming when the flames eat him up, too. My head hangs down because I can't hold it up anymore and I want to just _die_ already because I can't handle this, I just can't.

It's only out of the corner of my eye that I see the new image of my family he puts up. Thyler. Sobs wrack my body, and there has never been a pain this deep or a heartache this intense, I'm sure of it. I am absolutely positive.

And then I look at who Thyler's arm is around. Haylee, of course, and then it hits me. The baby. My niece. And now it's not just sorrow clawing through me, but: rage. "She was just a baby." The words break from my lips before I even know that I said them.

My hands are shaking now, and I stare at my sister-in-law's – then flat – stomach, and I start to thrash around in the chair, trying desperately to free myself, shouting, "She was just a baby! She was a baby! She wasn't even born yet and you killed her!"

"It wasn't us Peeta! It was Katniss!" I hear him say to me, but he's _lying_ and I pull hard enough that I think I might break a bone, but the latch on the restraint is starting to give. Pulling and pulling and I can feel it loosening and I'm going to be free and I am going to kill him for killing my family. It's only right.

"I'll kill you! I'm going to kill you!" My voice echoes off the walls, around the room, and I keep pulling and my hand is slipping through the loop. I get the hand free and Big Guy is at my side, holding me down, and I slam into him, trying to get him off me because they killed my family; my parents, my brothers, my sister-on-law, and my innocent little baby niece.

They're all screaming in the background, Snow and Cavanaugh, and they're saying something was much too soon, something about me not being ready, something about putting an end to my shrieks that are echoing off the walls, and then, while Big Guy holds me down, Cavanaugh leans over and I manage to scratch at his hand, making him bleed, before he injects me with something else.

And then I'm too weak to fight anymore, and my mind feels like it's being whitewashed, and … and…

And the next time I wake up in darkness, it's from my own screams.

* * *

><p><strong>Computer still has not come in #withdrawals. <strong>

**Anyway, got this up on the library computer. Happy reading, until we meet again!**


	4. Now We're Getting Somewhere

Breathing heavily, ignoring the pain in my body shouting at me to not get up, to just lie back down and be as still as possible, I force myself to sit up. Johanna pounds on the wall next to me. Johanna, whose screams are now as familiar to me as anything I've ever known. Johanna, who now says flatly, "So. You're still alive, then."

"You thought I wasn't?" I ask, and it comes out raspy, like I've done a lot of screaming lately myself.

"Well, when they threw you back in there… I think it was hours ago… you were completely silent. I couldn't even hear you breathe. I'd hoped they finally did you off, but just when I convinced myself they did, you started screaming." We're both quiet now after she says that, then continues on to ask, "What did they do?"

This has become our somewhat therapeutic routine. When we come back from the doctor, when we settle down from our screaming fits, we'll rehash what happened. Usually, it's the same thing that I tell her. The tracker jacker venom. But now… I don't know. It's like there's a blank spot in my memory, a missing link. "I don't remember." I tell her.

She doesn't answer, and I lean on the wall behind me, closing my eyes and trying to picture what went on. But there's nothing. The last thing I know, Big Guy was taking me from here to the chair. And then… I _know_ something happened. It was something big.

I think.

Maybe.

The more I think about it, the more I press myself for details, the bigger of a blank I draw. Perhaps it's better for me to not remember their torture. Why would I want or need to know what kind of pain they inflicted on me?

But I do know what I don't just feel empty and abandoned and sore right now, like I have for however long I've been here. I feel… mad. Just inherently irate, and it's not going away. And all I can remember from before is a voice slithering around in my head, saying Katniss' name. Telling me that I'm angry at her.

But that makes no sense. Why would I be upset with her? I know she didn't do anything wrong, in the Games or out. For some reason, though, I can't shake this voice in my head associating her name with my madness.

Then from outside my door, I hear, "He's awake."

And it's Big Guy out there, probably speaking into his ear piece. About me. The buzzing sound clangs and my door slides open. As is the _lovely_ routine we have going, he steps in and hefts me up by pulling on my arms. I don't resist him at all though he seems to be treating me with more distance and weariness than usual.

I don't ask him, though, because what good would it do? He walks me to the elevator and I take a deep breath, causing my ribs to ache with their now-normal pain whenever I have that movement. But he doesn't bring me to the next floor up, where the doctor is. We keep going, until we've reached ground level.

I wonder if, maybe, before all the venom, before my twitches, before all I hear in my ears is ringing of screams that have never actually happened, I would have panicked at the thought of where he could be taking me. But there is no more panic inside anymore. I'm sure of it. What is there to panic about here? That I'll be tortured? Been there, done that.

Suddenly, as the doors of the elevator open, he takes my hands and whips them out in front of me, cuffing them in the blink of an eye. I wasn't going anywhere, I want to tell him, but refrain. It's not until I look down to see the cuffs that I notice the dried blood caked under my fingernails.

What did I do? _What did I do_? And who did I do it to? And how? Why? Whoever was on the receiving end of this must have done something more than the regular injection of the venom. No, they got a rise out of me… a big one. I don't think I have ever felt crazy enough to claw my nails down someone's face before.

Except, well, for Brutus. Who I killed.

Looking down at my hands, I imagine that this is Brutus' blood, then think: it doesn't matter whose blood it is at all, does it? It's blood of the enemy, pure and simple. The blood of people who want to see my blood, Katniss' blood, splattered everywhere.

Big Guy puts his hand on my shoulder, holding tightly, letting me know I'm not to go running off anywhere. He speaks into his headpiece again, "Get the redheads ready. Yeah, I'm bringing him in."

Redheads? I don't even think I know people who have red hair. Do I? My head hasn't exactly been a welcoming place for me since I've been getting the tracker jacker venom into my system. But I don't think I know any redheads, either way.

As if anticipating my thoughts, Big Guy jerks me by the cuffs into the hallway, and I look around – I'm in the Training Center. This whole time, I've been kept in the same place I stayed pre-Games. This whole time. Somewhere in the back of my mind wonders whether or not I'll ever leave.

Then he pulls me into a room, shuts the door and locks it, grabbing me tightly by the shoulders and forcing me to look straight ahead. The redheads. It turns out I do know them, at least one of them. The Avox. The one Katniss saw in the woods who ended up bring our server. She told me that on our first time ever up on that roof together. Which was also the first time I ever touched a force field. When I picture it in my head, it was forever ago.

In reality, it was only just a bit over a year.

The Avox stands, beaten, shaking, terrified in the middle of the room. I wonder if she's here simply because she was _our_ server in the Capitol. She has to be. Then Bug Guy lets go of my shoulders and walks away, right back out of the room, locking me in. She looks at me, still clearly scared, and I can see her throat move… strangely while she swallows in a panic, and it takes me a second to realize that it's because she doesn't have a tongue.

Then I look beyond her and even though I thought I had felt numb before, I was wrong, because I feel a blow to the stomach when I see Darius. Also a redhead. Also an Avox. Also here at least in part because of me. And looking at both of them, all I have is one thought running through my head: haven't they suffered enough already?

There's nothing in this room to be afraid of. I'm confused, curious, as to why they locked us in here away from the dangers outside of these four walls, but I can't muster up enough energy to put deep thought into it. All I do is manage to say, "I'm so sorry."

I walk to them, and I look closely at Darius. I remember him as the Peacekeeper in Twelve – a pretty nice guy, but always well-fed and bursting with a light of health that almost everyone back home lacks. Now he's missing that glow. I search for my voice, which always suited me so well in times where I really didn't know what to do, "Darius," I offer him my hand, which is the most contact we would have ever had.

I don't know if he knows me from just around the district or just because I'm a victor, but he reaches out and takes my hand in his, and when they connect, I meet his eyes and I can see that he's already given up. I wonder if I have. I wonder that if I have, if he can see it. No, I haven't. I still have that glimmer of hope, that maybe the rebels will succeed, and they'll get me out of here and I will be able to see Katniss again. But standing here, looking at them, all of my cherished words leave me.

Here, when all I have to keep me opening my eyes is the relief that Katniss is alive, and the hope that whoever she's with will rescue me, now my words are leaving me, too. But isn't it only fair? Their words were taken from them long ago. I take the woman's hand and remember how to be gentle. This woman… she needs some gentleness in her life, regardless of where we are. What's happening around us, and I say, "I never learned your name."

She looks at me with her big eyes, then takes my hand, lays it out, and runs her finger over my palm. L – a – v – i – n – i – a she spells out, then curls my hand back up and holds it in hers and this time when I look into her eyes, it's like she's giving me strength from them. The Capitol has put her through so much. No matter what's happened to her, she must want them to pay more than anyone.

And Katniss will be the one to help her with that. She knows it, I can tell, just by how she looks. Darius takes her other hand, and for a moment, a beautiful moment, we're all one. All in the same position.

And then the doors open again, and Big Guy comes and takes me, and now I'm more confused than ever, because why would they let us have that moment, that real moment of bonding? His hands hold me in place again, and out of another door on the other side of the room, two more Peacekeepers come out and one goes immediately to Darius, when the other one takes some electric stick type thing, and sticks it against Lavinia's neck. She goes right down and the cry that tears from my mouth is drowned out by the thump her body makes as it falls to the ground.

Big Guy shoves a headpiece into my ear, and it statics for a second before Cavanaugh's voice is there, "And Katniss Everdeen wracks up another death toll."

"This wasn't her at all," I snap at him, but it looks like I'm talking to no one.

"It _was_, though, Peeta. Don't you see? If she just gave herself up, if she never did all of the things she did, that Avox would still be alive. This is her fault, and it's unfair and unjust for you to put the blame on anyone else." His voice coaxes into my ear.

I shake my head, but I can't find my voice when the guy with the electric stick just walks over her body, now lifeless on the floor, and turns a knob on the stick, then buzzes it against Darius. It brings him to his knees, and a sound rips from his mouth, something that might have been a scream once upon a time, but not anymore.

"Stop!" I scream, but it's useless, and they stick him again, and a knot builds up in the back of my throat, from tears or disgust or anger or a mix of all three, but I can't swallow it, and he's stuck again, and he collapses onto the ground, still breathing, but twitching and making those… those _animal_ sounds.

Big Guy takes me by the cuffs and brings me away, and I go because I can't watch that anymore. If Darius is lucky, they'll give him too much voltage and he'll go quicker than it appears I will be. He brings me to Cavanaugh's office and I already feel drained and distraught, and I sit without complaint while they uncuff me and strap me in.

I close my eyes when Cavanaugh comes closer, because I know he has the shot of tracker jacker venom in his hands, and I _hurt_ but it's going to come no matter what. While he injects it, I think of Lavinia. I don't know what she endured while she was here. But I hope it's a relief for her to be gone. She must have been through so much. Even when the rebels do, hopefully, break us out of here, would it have been worth it for her?

On the screen Cavanaugh projects a picture of Katniss, standing proudly, looking straight into the lens. He shows me the tape recording they have of Lavinia dying, of Darius falling to the ground, then Katniss again. He tells me reasons why it's her fault, over and over again, and the venom is starting to tap into my head, screams starting just in the back of my mind, just enough to frighten me.

Over and over and over again, the images, his voice, "Katniss is guilty. It's her fault. She did this." And when my mind starts to fuzz over and I grow hazy, my own thoughts repeating _Katniss killed them_, I snap my eyes shut against the images and shake my head, fighting against the venom.

_She didn't. She's innocent._

_She killed them._

"She would never!" I yell, and then they unstrap me and dose me again with something that's not the venom. Big Guy is taking off my restraints when whatever he gave me knocks me out.

For the first time in a long time, I dream. I dream that I'm with Katniss in the arena, and in that dream, she disappears from my side and fear streaks through me, and I run, trying to find her, but there's no one and nothing and she's gone, and then – there's a knife straight through my chest. And as I fall to the ground, Katniss looks down at me, smiling.

I wake up screaming again, and my hands come up to feel my chest and make sure there's no knife. My heart won't stop beating and I can't stop the memory from my dream, of her sliding her knife into me, her smile as she did it, from popping into my head.

_Deep down, you know she's a killer_.

_That was the venom_, I assure myself. It was all the venom. That's what made it seem so real.

Big Guy isn't waiting for me to wake up this time, though. I lay on the floor as they bring in Johanna, screaming, from her last session with the doctor. I close my eyes against the darkness and just try to think of Katniss, safe and sound, happy. And I try to tell myself to keep up hope that I'll get out of here soon.

My head, body, limbs, my insides… everything I am made of just hurts so much I don't know if I can stand it anymore. My foot just keeps twitching and so does my fingers, and my head is starting to turn on me, saying that Katniss and the rebels won't prevail, they won't win, and I'll never get out of here.

But I clench my fists tightly, and ward those thoughts off. I don't know if the rebellion will win or if they'll get me out, but I have to believe they will. Because if I don't have that hope, what else is there?

I'm not laying here for long – I never am, it seems – before my door buzzes and slides open. Same routine as always… except, not. Same routine as yesterday, and that panic I thought I had lost is back, because of what I saw yesterday and I can't do that again, I can't see someone else die or be tortured, and I turn, ramming straight into Big Guy's chest, but he stops me and turns me to face where a door is opening. Someone else. Yesterday it was Lavinia. Today it's… my prep team.

My poor little prep team. I slam into Big Guy, "Please, they didn't do anything wrong."

Ravilla makes eye contact with me and she looks so empty, I just can't stand it, and Leontius tries to give me a faint grin, "Peeta…"

Don't smile at me. I'm the reason you're here. "They don't know anything; they're loyal to the Capitol."

He jams the same headpiece into my ear, "Actually, Peeta, they are loyal to you. Which means they're loyal to Katniss as well."

I shake my head and try to quell the overwhelming dread when I see the man take his stick of electricity. Part of me tries to close my eyes, because I don't know if I can take seeing these people, these people who were so sad to see me go, be tortured because of nothing. I listen to that part of me, and my eyes close.

Then I only have to hear it, their screams, which last ever so briefly, because they stop almost immediately. I flip my eyes open, because they can't be dead, they just can't be, and they're not. But they passed out almost immediately. They can't take more of this. They need to be rescued as soon as possible. But I don't know if that time will ever come, and then they start repeating the electric shocks to Darius, who makes those terrible sounds again, and this absolute misery that swallows me because _I can't do anything_ just compounds every time he makes a sound.

Then there's Cavanaugh's voice in my ear, "Doesn't that just sound horrible? It's too bad Katniss doesn't care enough to stage a rescue. It's a shame she's just letting these people die and be hurt for her. Sounds pretty selfish to me."

My throat feels too tight to talk, but I manage out, "This is because of a Peacekeeper."

He says back, "No. It's Katniss."

When Darius' eyes roll back into his head, and he falls down, a mirror of yesterday, Big Guy brings me to Cavanaugh's where he also repeats yesterday's actions. Venom injection.

Tortured people.

"Katniss!"

Dead people.

"Katniss!"

When I start screaming, he injects me with something else and the next time I wake, I'm not in my dark room. I'm in the torture room on the first floor of the Training Center, and I think dimly, maybe it's my turn with the electricity. I'd rather that than have to watch or listen to anyone else.

But I'm wrong, because the door across from us opens. I'm not surprised anymore to see Darius. He looks terrible, trembling and shaking, and he is just so miserable, and when they open the door again, I don't even want to look because of who it might show. And then they bring her out.

Portia. No. Despite his hold on my arms and the aching pain whenever I move, I slam around in his arms, "No! Don't touch her! I'll do anything, please, do it to me."

Portia. My best friend. The woman who is glowing and golden and, even when she and Cinna had their problems, was always so vibrant with her now lifeless eyes that she lays on me. She emaciated and so frail looking and all she says is my name in a tiny voice, that's all it takes, before I try to thrash around to get free and get her and help her.

It does nothing. They take the stick of electricity and zap her, and she screams, then does it to Darius, who is already on his knees, and he makes those noises and they need _help_ but I can't even move.

I struggle and struggle and struggle against the iron hold of Big Guy's arms around me. Portia. Her pained tears drip out of her eyes, each one a tiny pain digging into my chest, while her terrorized screams burrow into my soul, and Cavanaugh's voice is in time with her screams and Darius' wounded animal sounds screaming, "Katniss Everdeen! She did this. This is her fault. There's only one person to blame for this, and you know it. Katniss! Katniss! Katniss! Katniss!"

And like it was planned, the two both fall to the ground, Portia's eyes rolling back in her head, her breath laboring, and Darius making one last, strangled, hurt noise, before his chest stops, and I fall with them, tears pouring down my face, feeling ripped apart and raw as my knees slam and crack into the ground.

Cavanaugh's voice is back, demanding, "Who did this, Peeta? Give me the name!"

The words leave my mouth on an uncontrollable sob, "Katniss."

* * *

><p><strong>I don't know what it says about me that I've been waiting to write about Peeta in the Capitol like this since The Love Games... anyway, I'm not well versed in torture, but I do my best with the psychology of it all. On a sidenote, I just got a new computer, and I've barely even started catching up on all my stuff, let alone had time to write for fun. I'm doing my best, though! Hope you enjoyed!<strong>


	5. Phase Three

After those miserable words were uttered, everything changes. They move me onto "Phase Three" and for a few days, they don't give me any venom at all. All they do is show me images of what's happening around Panem. The war footage, what the rebels have been doing, the burning buildings, the dead bodies. And amidst it all, promos of Katniss. With her, though, it's just pictures. They never show me any videos, if there are any. Just the images.

It's always different ones, screen shots, and I know it's real. This human suffering is going on outside of these Capitol walls, and they blame it on the rebels. At first, I disagree. I stand strong and I _know_ it's the Capitol's fault. But when they start injecting me with the venom, tiny amounts, that make me just so… muddled, I'm not sure.

In the back of my mind, I fight to stay focused on what it's telling me is real. But on the forefront, my mind is quickly turning from the confusion to conviction. The rebels are burning all of Panem down.

At one point, Cavanaugh gets in front of my chair, looking me into the eyes, "Peeta, who is responsible for this?"

_You_, I want to say faintly, but stronger is the voice presented to me by the venom, "The rebels."

His face lights up like nothing I've ever seen, "Excellent. They have Katniss working for them, Peeta. You see that. She is causing this destruction with them."

The venom wants to agree, but this time I fight it, barely manage to say, "No. She's… she would never hurt those people and do those things deliberately."

He closes his eyes and sighs, but says, "You're to have another appearance with Caesar Flickerman. You will speak directly to Katniss Everdeen through the camera."

He coaches me on what points I'm supposed to make – and it must be the venom because it doesn't sound too crazy, then calls in someone. It's not Portia this time, but a random woman with a makeup case and a suit. The whole time she cakes on the cosmetics, all I can think is that she is no Portia. And Portia can't do this because she's in custody, being tortured. Because of the war.

Big Guy puts me in the cuffs as soon as I'm dressed – huh, my ribs stick out now almost like they did after the Hunger Games. Though here, I do get some food, every other day, I think it is. It's disgusting and I can never decipher what it is when they slide it into the dark room, but it's something – and brings me to the stage here in the Training Center that most of the segments I've done with Caesar Flickerman in the past has been on.

This time, I will be on live. I can see the glowing sign up in the corner. Caesar makes eye contact with me while Big Guy takes off the cuffs, and I'm introduced and walk up onto the stage. He looks the same as he always did in the past, but now I can see the hard glint in his eyes, the same as before, when I called for the cease-fire.

I think of the first few times I was interviewed by him, our easy interaction and friendliness, and the last time, when we so clearly hated each other. Now I just feel confused – which of those Caesar's is real? Which Peeta is real? I don't know anymore, how to feel about the war, about the rebels, and part of me feels wrong, but most of me just feels empty.

He offers me his hand, "Welcome back to the show, Peeta."

I take his hand against my better judgment and shake it, even more than is normal because of my now-constant hand tremors. My voice sounds so vacant, even to my own ears, when I respond, "Nice to see you, Caesar."

While his smile is bright for the camera, his eyes scrutinize me. "You're looking _well_. Come on, have a seat."

Caesar crosses his legs after he leads me to the chairs, "What do you think of the rumors of Katniss taping propos for the districts?"

I remember what Cavanaugh told me to say in response to a question like this. Layered under a large canvas of doubt and images of the war, is my mind telling me to defend Katniss' right as a rebel leader. But that voice isn't strong enough to make it out over Cavanaugh's. I echo what that voice told me, "They're using her, obviously. To whip up the rebels. I doubt she even really knows what's going on in the war. What's at stake."

He leans forward, the gleam in his eye excited, like he thinks I've finally turned my back on Katniss, and he asks, "Is there anything you'd like to tell her?"

"There is." Despite my confusion, regardless of this new suspicion haunting me every thought about the war, I still love you. But I don't say that, because I hope that maybe by saying what these Capitol people want, maybe if the rebels do lose, she will be spared. "Don't be a fool, Katniss. Think for yourself. They've turned you into a weapon that could be instrumental in the destruction of humanity. If you've got any real influence, use it to put the brakes on this thing. Use it to stop the war before it's too late." That's what they told me to say. And now I think of all the destruction I saw, all of the death there was. Haymitch's deception, and how there must be more of where that came from. "Ask yourself, do you really trust the people you're working with? Do you really know what's going on? And if you don't… find out."

The camera man motions that everything is over and Caesar looks at me, "You did well. Then again, you always did well on camera."

I don't know what to say in response. So I say nothing, and Big Guy cuffs me, and we go back down to the doctor. He, too congratulates me on a camera job well done. Then he seats me and ties me into the chair, "You're ready for the last phase, Peeta."

I'm not certain I want to even ask what it is. I'm going to have to find out and go through it anyway. It turns out I don't have to ask, because Cavanaugh tells me while he busies around gathering the venom, "It's time for you to see Katniss as she really is."

Narrowing my eyes, I try to turn my arms in the restraints so he can't inject me, "I know who she is."

He shakes his head at me, "No, Peeta, you don't. You're blinded by your love. Now, I'll let you be a third party observer in how she's treated you in the past year. It's time for you to face the truth."

Angry now, I shake my head, "No, I know who she is. If you're just telling me the truth, why are you going to inject me with the venom?"

"It's to enhance your memories." He tells me, but I know he's lying.

Before he injects the venom, Cavanaugh projects a scene from the first Hunger Games, the one where I was with the Careers and Katniss shot down real tracker jackers at us, "See?" his voice slithers in, "She's trying to _kill_ you here."

"No," I object, "She was just trying to save herself. She… she thought I was against her then."

"No, Peeta, that's just what she's brainwashed you to think. Tell me, how do you feel about this? What went through you when this happened to you?"

It's easy to recall now, "Proud. I was happy that she was able to defend herself like that." I tell him, and then he sticks the syringe into my arm and releases the venom.

It starts to take hold, I feel the now familiar distress come over me. It sneaks right in, sliding and slicing through the pride I felt, replacing it with its poisonous terror. Cavanaugh asks, "And how do you feel about it now?"

I watch the clip and try to hold onto any emotion that wasn't caused by the venom, "Proud?"

But then he forces my head forward and we watch the scene play and replay, Katniss trying to kill me over and over again, "Proud? You're proud of her? All you tried to do was help her, and this is how she repays you?"

Now I'm uncertain. It's like a black curtain was pulled up over my emotions from before, and now it's a cold, harsh reality that I'm facing, and I whisper, "She was trying to kill me."

"Yes." He says, and switches the image.

We go through the first Hunger Games for hours, which turns into days. Cavanaugh lets me see the truth of the events, like when Katniss slipped me the sleeping syrup, it was so she could go and be the winner and let me die in the cave. Like when she found me in the mud, she rolled me out in the most painful way possible, then took delight in finding out about my blood poisoning. When she runs away from the muttations and leaves me limping behind her for the mutts to feed on while she gets away. When, after the rules are changed back and only one of us can live, how she was prepared to kill me right off the bat.

Then we move on to the Quell. In the beginning, she knows how to swim but still doesn't come help me off the plate, and makes Finnick do it. How I _die_ right in front of her eyes and she does nothing to save me, once again, me only living because of Finnick. When the poison rain comes, and she clearly wants to leave me behind. And of course, when she blows up the arena.

And when I'm in that chair, seeing everything from this point of view, it becomes clear. She didn't care at all. She tried to kill me. She's been responsible for the destruction in the districts. All those memories I once held near and dear were lies but now I know what's real. After I've seen the truth about it all, Cavanaugh shuts off the reel. I don't know how long it's been, maybe a week or two, but I know the truth now.

He looks at me, "So you understand now, Peeta, that she was never on your side. She was always trying to kill you. Always only looking out for herself."

And this is where it all hurts. My foot tapping is the only sound in the room and there's a piece of me who does desperately, angrily, agree with him. But, despite these terrible memories of the Games, I can't bring myself to fully believe it. I won't. At war with myself, I don't answer.

Every night, while I lie in the dark, it's a struggle for me to remember who I am. I try to hold onto the Peeta I grew up as, but every time I think of him, I think of Katniss. I try to hold on to the love I have for her, and it's not a hardship, because I can feel it in me, like a living, breathing thing. But that's when it happens.

That love, the warm, steady love I've always felt, that has always calmed me, turns into a fire, burning hot and angry, with her face in my mind. It drives me crazy, and it makes me angry at myself, for giving in, for feeling this bad emotion toward Katniss. But then the other part of me gets mad at the side that's mad at him, because that part of me hates Katniss, and – and

I'm turning into two people in my mind, going crazy in my mind, and I can't do a thing about it. While the darkness consumes me, the two Peeta's inside fight to win control over our body and mind.

_She's evil,_ comes the ever slithering voice of one of the Peeta's. He's the bad one. The one I don't like, but who won't leave.

**She's not,** old faithful Peeta will argue back. But faithful Peeta is nice, maybe too nice, and his innocent voice in my head sounds like it won't be any match to compete with bad Peeta.

_She killed those people_.

**She didn't! The Capitol did. Katniss is innocent. She wasn't even here when those things happened. How can you say those things?**

_How can _you_ say _those_ things? Portia was tortured, who knows if she's still alive, you saw it with our own eyes. Darius. Your prep team. Lavinia. What do they all have in common? Katniss._

**No. They have us in common, too. And Katniss… she cares about us. She cares about them.**

_Oh, she cares all right. That's why she let you get taken by the Capitol. That's why she hasn't come to help you yet. Sure she cares. That's why she tried to kill you all those times in the arena._

**She was helping us in the arena. She never tried to kill us**, good Peeta argues back, and fights to regain blurry images from my mind, hiding, trying to come out from behind clearer, shiny ones that tell me she was against me.

_Lies. We SAW her. Stop trying to defend her, because we both know the truth. She's a liar. Manipulative. Hurtful. Murderous. You can't deny what we saw right in front of our eyes._

**No… no.**

But that's all I can handle now, because I feel like my head is splitting into two and on one side, I don't know what I'm becoming, but on the other side, a side that seems bigger and stronger, is emerging, telling me what's happening to me here is good. That it's opening my eyes to the real Katniss, whom I couldn't truly see before.

I wrap my arms, which feel distant and too close at the same time, around myself, "Stay strong, Peeta. Stay strong. Don't give in."

To hold the new voice in my head at bay, the one screaming to think of the ways Katniss has wronged us, I wiggle my way closer to the wall. The voice becomes louder, tearing through my mind, and I do the only thing I can think of. I slam my head against the stone, and keep ramming it.

The pain is intense and immediate but it makes the voices and their constant arguing stop, for once, and I just keep hitting and hitting and hitting, and then –

Big Guy's voice is right over me and my blinding headache when I open my eyes, speaking into his headpiece, "No, he's not dead. His eyes are opening. Yes, bleeding. I'll bring him right there."

When he hauls me up, my head spins, and as soon as I'm upright, I feel the vomit rising, and I lean over and wretch, before he pulls me up again and forces me to keep walking. The elevator and the walking seems far slower than usual, and then I'm in the holding chair before I know it. Cavanaugh shines a bright light into my eyes, "You've concussed yourself, young man."

I think of the two voices who have taken up residence in my head, the separate people I've turned into, "It's not just me –" I try to explain.

He nods and cuts me off, "It's Katniss."

"Yes." The word bursts from my lips, and it's as though my mind, myself, has finally taken a side. Katniss. Her fault. I had to knock myself out to get away from thoughts of her. She is turning me against myself. This feeling in my gut, that's been torn between love and hatred for … however long it's been, has settled on hatred, and it feels _good_.

I feel clear now, and nothing has felt this good since before I was here, and I'm mystified as I look at the doctor, thinking of everything that now makes complete sense, "The rebels are wrong." How could I have thought that they were right?

"Yes! Peeta, you are doing fabulously. Amazing. I think it might be time for another of your live television performances. Don't worry, this time it won't be an interview with Flickerman. No, this time, you're ready to go on your own. You remember all of the disasters we've shown you throughout Panem?" he asks.

"Of course," the carnage immediately replays in my mind.

"Excellent," he grins at me, "We'll have you on camera and ready for action within the next few hours."

And so he does. So they do. It all seems so _right_ now – it's my duty, my job, to disillusion as many as I can with the novelty of Katniss, as I have been recently disillusioned myself. They put on my makeup, they dress me in another suit, and they escort me to a different room. For the first time in such a long time, I see President Snow. He stands, talking to a security Peacekeeper, near a podium, his ever present rose in place.

When he notices us, his wide grin appears, "Peeta! As I understand, you've recently come around to our side of things. Excellent." I don't respond to him because immediately after he addresses me, he looks at Big Guy, "Set him up in that chair over there." He points to a chair, set up about ten feet to the right of the podium, in front of a map of Panem."

Big Guy gets me up into the chair, and Snow turns to me once more, "Now, demand that cease-fire. You know now why it's necessary. Tell them about all of the destruction the rebels are causing and how it can end if they just call an end to the action. Doctor Cavanaugh has told you of the specific damages done. That's all you need to say."

I nod, preparing myself. The rebels will fall. Snow claps his hands and stands in front of his podium. The cameraman counts backwards from five, and then on the screens around us, I see our broadcast start, with the Capitol seal and the anthem blaring out of the speakers. As it fades, Snow looks directly into the camera, "Hello, to all of Panem. As I'm sure everyone is aware, there has been irreversible damage done to our fine nation as of recent, and we have a special guest here to discuss it all with you."

He half turns to me, and I can now see myself on screen. _Time to shine, Peeta. The rebels need to end. They need to give in and stop causing this trouble_, comes the voice in my head, lodging a deep seeded anger in my bones, "We have to have a cease-fire! Don't you people understand that if everything goes on at this rate, there will be no Panem left? The organization of the districts is being torn down and ruined right before our eyes."

I see the map light up, right over District Seven, and I see that they're giving me my clues on where to go next, so I follow them, "A dam broken in Seven, killing several hundred, due to rebel fire." The light then goes to a place right outside of District Four, "A train knocked over by the rebels, full of toxicities, that are now spilling into the waters there, racking up the death toll even higher." Then to Eleven, "A granary, lit on fire by the rebels, collapses, with the workers still inside. Don't you see –"

But I stop. Because I'm no longer on screen. It's Finnick, talking about Rue. Chaos erupts around me, orders being shouted left and right to the technicians, "Get our broadcast back!" "Get them off the screen!" "End this, NOW!"

But then Finnick is replaced by images of Katniss, and my heart leaps into my throat, and I push myself to stand, looking closer at the screen near me. Her face, so beautiful – _no!_ – looking so tortured – _she's evil!_ – fighting for what she thinks is right – **I love her.**

The other Peeta takes control of me again, the one that will do anything for Katniss, the one who believes in her goodness, and he fights to be at the forefront of my mind when everything crashes down to Snow, standing a few feet away from me, ordering into his headset, "They will pay for this! Organize the bombs, get the hovercrafts ready, and tonight, _drop them on District Thirteen_."

My heart freezes in my chest. _Yes, the problem will be taken care of. _**No, that can't happen!** They argue inside of me and I try to keep good Peeta here, as the techs finally regain control and Snow orders Big Guy to push me back into my seat, which he does. Then the seal disappears and Snow is back at his podium, speaking quickly, seriously, "Cleary, the rebels are now attempting to disrupt the dissemination of information they find to be incriminating, but both _truth_ and _justice_ will reign. This broadcast in full will be reran once our server is secure." He takes a deep breath and runs his hands over his lapels, then turns to face me, and I'm torn between _admiring him_ and **detesting him**, as he asks, "Do you have any parting thoughts for Katniss Everdeen?"

He's really asking if I have anything I want to say to her before he bombs District Thirteen and kills her. I put that fresh image of her from the propos in my head.

"Katniss…" _I hate you._ **I love you. **_HATE_, "How do you think this will end? What will be left? No one is safe. Not in the Capitol. Not in the districts. And you…" _The rebels. Immoral. Criminal. They deserve to die_, "In Thirteen…" **Protect the rebels. Warn them. Protect Katniss. **The good old Peeta pushes through and I'm proud I've been able to accomplish that, and I don't hesitate to take advantage of him, looking right into the camera, fighting to keep new bad Peeta down, "Dead by morning!"

And that's all I have time to say or do before Snow yells, "End it!" because I have succeeded in giving him away, and then Big Guy's fist barrels toward my face, and I swear I hear crunching sounds along with my yelp of pain as his hand meets my nose. Agony, sharp and deep, comes along with the rainfall of blood I can see hitting the floor. I want to say more as long as I'm really in control of my mind, before I start to hate again. But I get nothing out, before Big Guy slams the butt of his rifle into my forehead and I'm already fading by the time I hit the ground.

* * *

><p><strong>I understand that I completely suck because of how little I've updated and now that I have my computer back I have no excuses. But I promise to update at least once in the next month, and then the story will get finished on my winter break. Believe me, this story WILL be completed, and updated regularly by January.<strong>


	6. Rescued?

I can hardly move. And this time, it's not just because of the venom, because my limbs have grown accustomed to that sort of lethargy. No, now it's because I've been so pummeled, every time I breathe it feels like my ribs are digging into my lungs, and it takes so much effort just to not pass back out.

I hear voices to the left of me, both familiar: one belonging to the president and one belonging to the doctor. They're making an effort to whisper, but the doctor's room – I know I'm there because I can feel the restraints – isn't big or full enough to hide any conversation. Snow is _mad_, "You said he was ready, Cavanaugh!"

The doctor answers, "He was, I swear it! He was adamant that she was evil and so were the rebels, and he was telling the truth. I don't know what happened."

"Well, you had better think of something bigger and better because your previous plan clearly didn't work as well as you had thought. We're working with much more limited time now than we were at the beginning, Cavanaugh. So get going." And then there's the buzzing and the door opens and shuts.

With difficulty, I manage to get my eyes open. Nope, just one eye, the other one just resonates a sting when I try to make it open. Cavanaugh is immediately there, shining a light into my one open eye, his face grave, "You got yourself into quite the beating, young man."

I remember. _You screwed up_. **You did the right thing**. They're at it again. I just stare at Cavanaugh with my good eye, and he continues, "Your nose was broken, but it's been reset and stitched. Should be back to normal within a few days. A few cracked ribs, but because of President Snow's vast and advanced medical supply, will only be sore and painful but are already on their road to healing. Your eye should also be back to normal fairly soon."

_You wouldn't have to be getting back to normal fairly soon if you just kept our mouth shut._ I can already feel angry Peeta taking over again, with old Peeta fading to the background. Good. _You might as well replace "old" Peeta with "weak" Peeta._ Weak he may be, but he's still in here, just a ghost in the back of my mind.

I watch as Cavanaugh paces back and forth a bit, and then he seems to come to a realization. "All right," he says, mostly to himself, and walks over to the cabinets where the films are kept, unlocks it, and plugs a compilation into the projector. Before he does anything else, he walks to the side of the room and buzzes into the speaker, "I need the footage. Yes, the backup plan. As fast as possible." Then he takes a syringe and walks over to my chair, explaining, "This is just a filler for you." Before he clicks the projector on.

On the screen comes Katniss and myself, in our cave, kissing. _She was just trying to kill me_. But it's images and videos like this that make the ghost stronger, **she cares about me. Maybe not love, but cares**. Then it switches to Quarter Quell footage of us kissing on the beach, when I could feel that she cared. That it was different.

Then he injects me, and the venom makes new Peeta stronger, silencing weak Peeta, and feeling disgusted at myself on that beach. Cavanaugh is standing there, saying, "You know while this was happening, all she was doing was trying to figure out a way to kill you."

_And I played right into it. Like the fool she surely thought I was_.

Cavanaugh clicks a button on his tiny remote and the image switches, "This is what she really wanted the whole time," he tells me as a photo of Katniss and Gale take up the screen. I don't know exactly where they are – in the woods, I think – and this is the image that fills me with rage. I don't know if it's a feeling weak Peeta left behind that I now have the ability to blow into full proportion or what, but right now I want to rip out their throats.

They made a fool of me. _She_ made a fool of me, laughing at me behind my back, treating me like garbage all the time, using me to comfort her, because she always knew I would. "What kind of a person does that?" the words slip out of my mouth before I can do anything to stop them. Why should I stop them, anyway? Katniss Everdeen is the girl who thinks she can do anything she wants, including messing with people's heads and hearts.

There's a knock on the door as Cavanaugh responds, "I was hoping you would think along those lines, Peeta." And he opens the door while my eyes are still latched onto the image on the screen.

He takes something from a man in a lab coat just like his and then shuts the door again. While the screen goes blank and he puts his new tape in the projector, he talks to me, "The thing is… Katniss isn't exactly a "person"."

I look up at him, and even I can't believe that. "Of course she is. She's an evil person, a selfish person, but still a person."

He clicks on the video, "Not a human, Peeta, but a muttation."

And then the image shows the wolf-like mutts from the first Hunger Games I was in, the ones Katniss ran away and left me to die from. Slowly, the image morphs, teeny, tiny bit by teeny tiny bit, until it forms Katniss' face.

**Come on. Clearly not real**, weak Peeta surprisingly makes a comeback, and even convinces me now, "That's ridiculous."

But the video just keeps replaying, and Cavanaugh asks, "Is it, though?"

And he reaches over and takes another dose of venom, injecting it into my arm, and keeps the video of the mutt morphing into Katniss replaying. There is no respite of the darkness of my room now, not for what I'm sure is days. All I know is this chair, that venom, and those videos. Cavanaugh tells me the story of how she came to be: Katniss Everdeen was made by District Thirteen as – what appeared to be – a baby. She was placed in the care of the man who sang to mockingjays, so he would teach her how to sing as well, and then they would be able to recognize her later in life. And when they saw her in the Games, they knew it was really her. That's why all of this is happening now.

Somewhere along the line, the slithery, new voice takes a firm hold over my mind, whispering through my veins. And it's there to stay. This hatred in my blood is real now, a strong, virile, pulsing hatred.

"So you see, Peeta, she's a special kind of mutt. She isn't exactly a wolf woman under her human appearance. She's her own breed. This video just shows you how the same thoughts, desires, and impulses run through the wolf mutts as they run through Katniss." Doctor Cavanaugh replays the reel, but I don't need to watch it again. I now see how blind I was before:

Katniss Everdeen isn't innocent.

She isn't kind.

She isn't even human.

"She is a muttation," the words break from my lips with a forceful conviction.

Cavanaugh leans down, his grin feral, "And what do you do to muttations, Peeta? How do we treat them?"

Without hesitation, feeling the absolute certainty in myself, I answer, "We kill them."

"_Excellent_." I don't know if that voice belongs to my doctor or my mind, but I do know that regardless of who said it, it's true. The truth is out there and it hurts, but it needs to be said. Doctor Cavanaugh keeps me strapped to the chair for an indescribable amount of time, where I just watch the footage of Katniss trying to kill me and generally just being a horrible person, over and over again, without the use of venom.

My thoughts are clear enough without it. Everything just makes more sense. She's a mutt. That's how she can live with all of the terrible things she does. A muttation. How can the people there, risking their lives and dying for her, not realize it? Not see it? I'll admit that she can be a bit pesky and, okay, I was fooled, but not everyone there can be as entranced by her as my stupid self was, right?

Cavanaugh interrogates me, question after question, digging into my memories of Katniss throughout both Hunger Games, and the propos of her during the war, and even some from before, like when I first heard her singing, things that they had me recall for them weeks ago. It seems that I pass his test, because for the first time in days, maybe a week, I'm unstrapped from this chair and Big Guy, who hasn't made an appearance since that disastrous television broadcast, escorts me back to my dark room.

When I get in there, I slowly slide to the ground. True to Cavanaugh's words, my ribs don't kill anymore and I can now open my other eye without any pain. When my door shuts, Johanna asks me where I've been and what's happened to me. Says that she thought I was dead. Orders me to talk to her if I'm conscious – how like Johanna. _Ordering_ me to speak rather than simply asking me to.

But I don't answer her either way. Why should I? She's been working with the rebels and trying to protect Katniss. Where in that equation does she merit a response from me? Because as far as I can tell, it doesn't.

I don't sleep or pass out in here. Instead, I sit with my knees drawn up and think. About what a sucker I was for so long, and about how Katniss Everdeen will pay for what she's done. To me, and to the fools she's convinced to follow in her footsteps. To everyone. She will get what's coming to her, and it's only right that her fate is delivered by my hands. Isn't that justice? It sounds almost poetic to me.

Cutting into my thoughts is an urgent ringing, followed by buzzing sound after buzzing sound, all of our doors opening. Cautiously, I poke my head out, as does Johanna from next to me, and that's about all we have time to do before someone in a gray uniform steps into view and throws a can of something toward us, gas exploding from it, making me so dizzy my head falls to the ground within moments.

As their footsteps come closer, I see nothing but their boots as a haze from the gas takes my mind over and into nothingness.

When I come to, I'm not in the dark. I'm not in the doctor's room. I'm not alone, nor am I with anyone I know. Where am I? What happened back there? Trying to shake off my confusion, I run my hands down this padded table I'm laying one, and get a good grip on the sides, pushing myself up.

The room spins a bit, but there's no headache waiting for me. So that's a giant plus. And then they ascend upon me, these people, dressed in lab coats, but not as white and pristine as Dr. Cavanaugh's. One of them picks up both my hands, putting his fingers against my wrists, measuring out my pulse, and another has a small but bright light out and is shining it right into my eyes.

"Stop," I manage to get out through my agitation and bewilderment.

Then a third one stands directly in front of me, saying in a slow voice that I think is supposed to be calming, "It's all right, now, Peeta. You're out of the Capitol, in District Thirteen. We have you safe."

Safe? District Thirteen, that means Katniss the muttation is here. The three doctors all back away when the door opens, and I look over to see who it –

Speak. Of. The. Devil.

She walks right into a room with me, after she has to know that I know the truth about her. That she doesn't have me under her spell any longer. What is this dumb bitch doing? Why is she walking toward me with her arms open?

To try to hurt you as soon as she gets close, my mind tells me, get her first! Of course.

I reach out and swipe these three doctors away from me. The only problem I have right now is something I can fix myself. She's running for me now, her arms out – probably going to slap me and pull out a weapon at first opportunity – but I beat her to it. As soon as she's within reach, before she can pull a fast one on me, I have my hands tight around her neck.

I feel her windpipe beneath my fingers, edging ever so closely to closing. _Yes_. Her eyes are bulging, staring at me in shock, while her arms are limp at her sides. It's about to happen. But then there's a sharp pain on the back of my head, and I swear I see stars before my fingers aren't wrapped around anything anymore, and I hit the ground – hard – with my whole world spinning around me.

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><p><strong>Out of the Capitol into District 13! Woo! Or... not. Depending on how you look at it. Thanks for reading and please review! I'll have the next chapter up in a week or so.<strong>


	7. Heartbroken Revenge

The next time I wake up, I'm restrained again. Was that all some crazy dream I had while in Cavanaugh's office? But when I open my eyes, I know it wasn't. It wasn't a dream at all, because this place isn't one that I recognize from the Capitol, and those people on the other side of the room are all wearing not the white of the Peacekeepers in the Capitol, but a gray.

The gray of rebels, I would guess. One of them looks over at me and says, "He's awake."

The team of them all walk over. I've never seen them before. "Where am I?" I ask, and my throat feels dry and like sandpaper.

They all pause, and look at each other, before one of them tells me, "You're in District Thirteen."

"Why?" Why didn't they rescue me and bring me back home? Doesn't that seem like the smart thing to do? If the rebels were becoming so powerful, why couldn't they have had District Twelve on their side, why couldn't they have settled in there as well as here?

The man on the left of the trio exchanges a look with the one next to them, then I watch him reach for a syringe. My confusion gets even deeper, and I try to wiggle my way out of these things, but they just come closer with the needle, "What are you doing?" I ask.

He pauses right above my arm, "We think it might be better for you if you take some rest."

Now anger comes rushing in, and my wiggles become a real struggle, "_Why_? What aren't you telling me?"

The other two doctors swoop in and pin me down, while the other one injects whatever is in his syringe into my arm. Almost immediately, all of my muscles feel like jelly, and I can't even squirm anymore. Then a fuzz seeps into my mind and leaves me in less of a Capitol drug-like darkness and more of a gray haze.

The next time I open my eyes, there's only one doctor in here with me. The one who injected me with the thing. Questions live on my tongue, begging to be asked, but as soon as I open my mouth, it feels like I've just swallowed tons of cotton balls. He looks up at me, "Mr. Mellark, I'll get you some water?"

I nod and he walks over to retrieve a small cup filled with liquid, then holds it up for me to drink. After I do, my tongue is able to be moved. This time, I won't ask the myriad of questions I have about home, not right away. Because I want other answers first. Starting with the basics, I ask, "How long have I been gone?"

He checks his watch, "Oh, well, we injected you with the serum yesterday, almost twenty-four hours ago, so about a whole day."

Aggravation notches down my temper, and I grit my teeth, "No. How long was I with the Capitol?"

Because it feels like I was there for years. My mind tells me it can't have been nearly that long, but my body wants to scream for the time in my life that has been taken. Then again, it's all been taken, hasn't it, because I've spent so much of it catering to Katniss.

He doesn't speak for a moment, swallowing hard, before answering in a strictly business-like tone, "Fifty-one days."

And then I slump down because _fifty-one_ days. To a part of my brain, that's nothing. To one side of me, the side that feels like I've been gone for so long, the fact that the measurement has taken place in mere days is almost an insult. But to the other piece of me, those are fifty-one days that these rebels, the ones I was unbelievably _rooting_ for before, just left me there.

He walks around the room, and picks up a chart, "I thought you might want to know that the venom that's been instilled in your body for apparently long periods of time is rapidly tracing out of your system."

I detest this man. I truly do. "Yeah, that venom that's only in my system because you didn't send your people in sooner to help me. I mean, clearly, the rescue wasn't that difficult or complex, if I only heard the sirens and alarms going off in the facility going off for a minute or so. And it still took you that long."

He straightens up and puts down my chart, "There were many plans and complicated actions that went in to your rescue. They cannot just be simplified the way you are doing."

Glaring at him, I lay back, "Yeah, right. Where is my family? I want to see them." I wonder if the baby has been born yet. She had to have been, right? I've been gone for almost two months, and Haylee was pretty far along when I left. A bit over eight months. The baby must be adorable.

But he edges around answering, which makes me suspicious of him. He walks slowly to the door and knocks, which makes someone on the other side open it. They whisper for a few moments, and then the doctor nods at me, and leaves.

What a complete jerk. Who does that? I just _bet_ he's not going to retrieve my family, either. Why haven't they been brought in to see me yet? Well, maybe, since I'm stuck in this ridiculous District Thirteen rebel base, and they are probably all back in District Twelve, it might be difficult. But you would think these people would believe that getting my loved ones to see that I'm all right first hand would be some sort of priority.

Apparently not. What else could I expect from some sort of Katniss Everdeen brainwashed followers? Soon, the door opens once more, and a different man comes in, dressed in the gray uniforms I've seen so often in my limited time here. He stands at the door, his arms crossed. A guard, it occurs to me. He is guarding me in this small room.

A small, dark laugh makes its way from the back of my throat: do I look like I'm going anywhere, all tied up here? Come on. And _these_ are the people working to bring down the Capitol? I remain to be impressed.

"Hey," I say to him, getting his attention. I don't know if I should say something or keep my mouth shut, after all, they don't seem to be very willing to answer questions here, let alone – I assume – take advice. But there's the voice in my head, so earnest, telling me to try anyway. "Katniss Everdeen, she isn't what you think."

He narrows his eyes at me and doesn't say anything, and then looks completely away, out at nothing in the distance.

But I don't give up, "Listen, please, I'm just trying to help you. I'm sure she's got you thinking that she's just a girl trying to do what's best, but that's all an act. She's good at it, and I fell for it, too, so you know that it's not that I'm blaming you. But if you just open your mind to the idea you can accept that she's not right in her thinking."

This man is a fool, I think, desperately, when he reaches behind him and knocks on the door. I know what's surely coming next. They're going to knock me out again, they must be. A man in a lab coat comes in and shakes his head at me, and he looks disappointed, but I don't know why he's giving me that look, when it really should be the other way around. These people are idiots, all of them.

I want to try to warn him about Katniss, but he's already poking at me, and releasing something into my blood stream, and I'm already too far gone to say anything.

This time, the minute I wake, the cotton mouth is here, and they've placed a small cup of water within the few inches of reach I have with my right hand. I slide along to get it, and bend my head uncomfortably low to get the thing between my teeth, and tip it backwards, drinking it until the last drop is gone.

I know my goal here – what I need to do is convince these people to see Katniss Everdeen for what she truly is. My larger focus – killing her – is out of sight for the moment, with my being locked up here, but maybe if I can get these people to see the truth, it'll be simpler to accomplish. But these people are so stubborn they just won't listen. Every time I even open my mouth, it seems, they try to knock me out for hours – that first time a whole day – at a time.

The door opens, and the same doctor walks in. I still don't know his name, but he looks down at me, "We have a visitor for you, Mr. Mellark."

The door opens again, but I don't see anyone I would deem a visitor. It's just more doctors. "Who are you all?" I ask them.

The lead doctor, the one I've seen before ushers everyone into my smallish space, all with their clipboards and pens and judging eyes, and he answers, "They're a special division here in District Thirteen, all gathered to help get you back to normal."

I dislike them already. They all just want to come in here and look at the freak who was in Capitol control. It's not my mind that needs fixing. It's all of theirs. This place is disgusting, as are the people in it. All of the doctors gather on one side of the room and stare at me, with one of them nodding toward the door, "Look, it's your visitor."

I do look, and I see a girl walk in. In my muddled mind, I recognize her. She smiles at me, and I _know_ I know her from somewhere when she says, "Peeta? It's Delly. From home."

"Delly?" Saying her name on my tongue sounds familiar, and I repeat it in my head. Delly. Delly. Delllllllly. And then it registers, a tickling vision in my mind, of a chubby blonde girl, little, maybe five or six, smiling and laughing with me, and that girl, after shedding a few pounds, is now standing in front of me, with the same smile. "Delly." Relief, strong and surprising, trickles through me, "It's you."

Finally, a familiar face. The face of someone that I know and that I know isn't evil. Her smile grows, "Yes!" She hesitates before asking, "How do you feel?"

Is she serious? How do I feel? I'm in pain, though less than I've become used to, and strapped down to a chair, in a place full of people who are in cahoots with Katniss Everdeen. Honestly, I answer, "Awful." Wait… maybe _she_ can give me the answers that the doctors refuse me. "Where are we? What's happened?"

Her face clouds over a bit, "Well… we're in District Thirteen. We live here now."

I feel frustrated, at the situation and with her, because that's the same answer these stupid doctors have been telling me, "That's what people have been saying." But _why_? "But it makes no sense." Because it just doesn't. Maybe I could understand a little bit why I am here, right after they "saved" me, but Delly shouldn't be here at all. She has no reason to be here; she belongs in District Twelve, with her family in the shoe shop. And if they were going to bring anyone from home here to see me, why wouldn't it be my family? "Why aren't we home?"

She rushes through her answer, "There was … an accident." But then she changes the exact topic, "I miss home badly, too. I was only just thinking about all those chalk drawings we used to do on the paving stones. Yours were so wonderful. Remember when you made each one a different animal?"

Her words dredge up an image in my mind, with chalk in my hand and a whole walkway of paving stones as a parade of creatures. "Yeah. Pigs and cats and thinks." But who cares about that? I don't want to think of the past, I want to know what happened to my home and why no one will tell me anything. "You said… about an accident?"

Now she refuses to rush through her words. She's carefully picking through them, "It was bad. No one… could stay." She then changes the subject and says something else about how she's sure I'm going to like it here, but the fact that she's so deliberately answering me makes me suspicious and I _don't like it one bit_.

Ignoring her other statements about how I'll like it here, I ask the question I've been wanting to know the answer to since I got here, "Why hasn't my family come to see me?"

"They can't. A lot of people didn't get out of Twelve." She keeps talking, but I latch onto the tears in her eyes, and her phrasing "didn't get out of Twelve." Which means something must have happened that they couldn't get away from. But what?

Under a thick veil in my mind, I can see something. It's like trying to remember a dream, and it's so hard to think of even when you know it's in there somewhere, and I close my eyes trying to think. I don't know where it comes from, but I can see flames, and the bakery engulfed in them. The thought sticks in my mind and I'm so dead certain that this is correct, and I don't even ask, I just say, "There was a fire," and I look toward Delly for a confirmation.

Even before she says, "Yes," I already know it's the truth by the way her skin pales.

Rage consumes me, because that was my home, that was my _family_, "Twelve burned down, didn't it?" The more I say it, the clearer the images in my head come. They are accompanied by a voice, "_When Katniss shot that arrow, she simultaneously, single-handedly blew up your bakery._" It was Katniss. She did this, "Because of her. Because of Katniss!"

Everyone I love is dead because of that disgusting _thing_, and I will get out of here, and she will pay, and I try to pull my arms out of their dumb restraints, while Delly takes a step closer, saying quietly, "Oh, no, Peeta. It wasn't her fault."

Yeah, right. I used to believe that once upon a time, too. Because she can convince people of her innocence so easily, but Delly shouldn't give in to it, to Katniss. "Did she tell you that?" I ask, keeping my voice low, because maybe I can convince her of the truth. If anyone, shouldn't I be able to convince Delly? She's the one I've known the longest.

But I don't get the chance to, because the door opens and she starts to leave. It's all because they don't want people here knowing the truth about her, well that's too bad, because I will not keep it to myself. Before Delly has the chance to get away, I shout to her, "Because she's lying! She's a liar! You can't believe anything she says! She's some kind of mutt the Capitol created to use against the rest of us!"

Delly is so naïve, that she is denying the truth of my words, but she's going toward the door so quickly and the truth about Katniss has to get out, so I rush out of words, "Don't trust her, Delly. I did, and she tried to kill me. She killed my friends. My family. Don't even go near her! She's a mutt! A mutt! She's a stinking mutt!"

But by the time my words are out, Delly is gone and the door is shut again. My anger fades and despair wells up inside of me, making my eyes prick with tears, "A mutt," I whisper, "She's a mutt who killed my family."

My family is dead. All of them. And I'll never see their faces again, all because of Katniss. She killed my family. My parents and Lucern, and Thyler and Haylee and the little baby. I am going to kill her is it's the last thing I do.

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><p><strong>Next chapter :) Poor Peeta... I really do love him so much. Please leave a review!<strong>


	8. Little By Little

After that visit with Delly, they don't allow me anymore "visitors." I don't see anyone from my old life at all, but maybe that's because they're dead. Or maybe it's because they don't want me yelling anymore about how Katniss Everdeen is a muttation. Either way, the result is the same.

The only faces I see are of doctors. My team of "specialists" are in and out all of the time, observing me, writing about me, poking and prodding at me. And the whole time, a guard in a gray uniform stands at the door "just in case."

They don't even make conversation with me for the first few days. Just study me. But one day, the lead doctor, who still doesn't tell me his name, says, "We have developed a way to help you, Mr. Mellark."

They all assemble and get out their notepads, while the man explains to me, "We believe you were hijacked in the Capitol. They took your mind from you, by stealing your memories. We intend to give them back. How does that sound?"

I look around, at him, at the guard, and then down at my restraints. I'm increasingly irritated with him, and this is just the last straw, with him standing in front of me, looking so self-satisfied. "You think you're so much better than the Capitol, don't you?" I ask, and before he can give me an answer I continue, "You think that they are so evil, and you are in on doing the right thing. But I have news for you: you are one in the same."

His face takes a downfall and I can see his blatant annoyance with me, but he refuses to speak back to me. So I continue, "Both of you take me places against my will, you both lock up my arms and legs, confining any movement I have. You both want to dig into my mind and mess with my own personal thoughts. You both think exactly alike, you rebels and the Capitol." His jaw twitches and there is this innate sense of pleasure I have at making him feel so upset. I continue, "And you know what? At least Cavanaugh was personable with me. Called me by my first name, let me know his. Made conversation with me. _Knew what he was doing_. Hell, even my guard there was better. Bigger, stronger."

"That's quite enough out of you," another doctor says, and the one right in front of me reaches out for a syringe, the one that knocks me out.

Before he injects it, I say, "And you and the Capitol both try to shut me up and load me up with drugs whenever I say something you don't want to hear."

With a glare, he takes a deep breath and puts the syringe down, "You're a troubled boy, Mr. Mellark. You've gone through what most people can't even imagine. We're just trying to help you."

"You keep telling yourself that," I tell him, looking him in the eye and feeling sick, then I lay back and close mine. "Why don't you just knock me out so you guys can run your tests?"

His voice cuts into me, "Well, actually, you must be awake for us to try our method." I open my eyes again as he reaches for that syringe again, "Just relax," he advises me, and motions for the other doctors to file out of the room. It's then that I realize they must be able to watch me from the other side of the wall.

I don't like that feeling, not at all. It just makes me wonder who else is watching me. Maybe _she_ is, poking fun and spreading lies. Ugh. Just the thought bothers me. "Relax," the doctor orders me again, and this time I try.

Deep breath, close my eyes. He speaks to me again, "Now tell me, what do you feel when you think of Katniss Everdeen?"

Just the mention of her name causes my stomach to clench and my jaw to tighten. I scowl, "I hate her."

"But could you expand on that?" He asks me.

With a deep breath I access my inner thesaurus, "I hate her. Loathe. Despise. Abhor. She repulses me."

After a few moments, he reaches down and touches his hand to my forehead, ordering, "Relax."

I try to, but my eyes snap open when I feel him inject something into my arm, "I thought you weren't going to try to knock me out," I say.

He shakes his head, "This won't knock you out. It's a relaxant. It will make you calm, alleviate your initial reactions and allow you to delve deeper into the meanings of your feelings and the situations around you."

I doubt him, but then he pushes down the top of the syringe and releases the drug into my system. My body is braced – I guess it's an initial reaction to me being injected with something after all the venom. But this stuff doesn't hurt or lace through me at all like the venom did. It whispers along my blood, just barely touching me, but making me feel so much better. So much less stressed.

The doctor is above me once more and he asks, "Now tell me. How do you feel about Katniss Everdeen? What emotions do you have toward her?"

The hatred that burns the back of my throat is still there, but there's more. I think of the video footage I saw with Dr. Cavanaugh, where she tried to kill me. Of the images of the fire burning through my home that killed my family. I look up at the doctor, and think of how even though I do find him ridiculous for following Katniss, how much I want these people to see who she really is. I think of all of the muttations I've come into contact with in the past, and how Katniss is made from the same stuff as them.

"Scared." I tell the doctor. "She…" I have to pause and take a deep breath before I can continue, "She terrifies me."

His eyes measure me, then he scribbles things down on his notepad, "Tell me what you know about her."

I swallow hard, and despite the drug, the fear I feel when I think of her is so real, "She's dangerous, and manipulative, and deceitful. She's lethal."

More of his writing, before he asks, "So there is nothing good about her?"

I know he doesn't believe me, and that's the worst part. These people won't know truly how bad she is until it's too late, just like me. Miserable, I tell him the cold, hard truth, "No. There is no good in her. That's just what she wants you to think."

"I see," he says, and then steps back, "Well, you did well reacting to the drug today, Mr. Mellark. Today was just a trial run through, but everything went well. Your lunch should be coming in soon, and I'm prepared to make you a deal."

I look up at him, curious, and he says, "I'm aware that it has been quite a while since you have been out of your restraints. In the nine days you've been here, as you know, your meals have had to be fed to you. But today, with the influence of the relaxant still in your system, and seeing how calm you are right now, I could get you to be able to feed yourself dessert."

Feeling as though if I didn't have the calming drug in me, I would want to laugh at him, but as it is I just accept it. Before – before being here, in the Capitol, and in the Quell – being "able to feed myself dessert" would be a day to day routine, nothing special at all. But now, even just that little thing is big enough to have to work toward. "Thank you," I tell him, and I think I even mean it.

When they bring in lunch, I am fed the majority of it by the doctor, and then, he takes the keys out of his pocket, "You must remain calm, all right? Any sudden upsets from you, and I will revoke this allowance for another few weeks' time. Are we understood?"

"Understood." I tell him. I have myself under control. I am fine enough to eat some pudding, I would think.

He reaches down and uses his key to unlatch the restraints on my arms. It feels so strange, so move them for the first time in over a week. They feel both lighter and heavier than I remember. For a few moments, all I do is lift them up and down, up and down, and then I move my wrists in circles. It feels good. The doctor hands me the small bowl of pudding with a spoon in it. And as ridiculous as it sounds, being able to eat something that isn't the gross food I was fed in the Capitol by myself with my own free hands, is amazing.

And it's over all too soon. When the lunch tray is all repacked, he stands cautiously, "I'm going to return this. I am putting my trust in you, Mr. Mellark, to behave yourself with your arms unbound while I leave."

Yes. I guess this doctor wasn't as bad as I thought. While he leaves I run my hands over my hair, my face, my chest. Then down, onto the bed they have me alternatively sit on or lie down on, always strapped in. I hold my hands out in front of me and wriggle my fingers. All too soon, the doctor is back and he straps me back in for the night.

When the relaxant drug wears off, the doctor comes back in and gets some of my blood for his tests, then leaves. Hours later, a guard comes in to feed me dinner, and then when he shuts the door, it's lights out for the rest of the night. I try to make myself sleep, but it's difficult, because every time I close my eyes, I'm haunted by my family.

If I had only known, you know? If I hadn't been so fooled by Katniss, maybe they would still be alive. She is the one who truly killed them, I guess, but it was also me. I didn't have to volunteer to go into that arena with her, for a second time. I didn't have to encourage people to keep her alive. Lucern knew something was up with her. He told me that she was bad news, he told me I was being a fool.

Why didn't I listen to him? He _always_ had my best interests at heart. He was always looking out for me, even when we were little. And I couldn't look out for him, or Thyler or dad, either, enough to keep them alive. Tears leak out of my eyes and fall down onto the bedding below me. I can't even lift my hands up to wipe at them.

Eventually, I let sleep claim me.

When I wake up the next time, the doctor is already here, setting up a television and a tape player. "What's going on?" I ask him, and he looks down at me.

"Ah, you're awake. Well, here we have the beginning of a proposed treatment ready for you." He tells me, and I regard him suspiciously, because, once more, this seems just like what the Capitol did, and he keeps insisting that they're different.

He finishes hooking up the machine, and walks over to me, saying, "I'm going to give you the same calming drug I gave you yesterday, so prepare yourself."

After a few moments, he injects me, then flicks the play button on the machine and steps back, out of the way. My initial reaction to seeing what's on the screen – Katniss and myself in that cave from our first Games – is to get angry. But the calmer must soothe that impulse, because, as she leans over me on the screen, I just feel frightened. Obviously, I know she doesn't succeed in killing me, but it's still not fun to watch.

But then the scene progresses. And it's not like the one the Capitol showed me at all, rather, she's being nice to me. She's telling me a story about a goat, and I just don't understand. The story takes her a while to tell me in the clip, and I don't think the rebels tampered with it, because I'm staring at her with this look of dopey adoration that just couldn't be made up.

It makes no sense. We're secluded in the cave and my leg is useless, and she is just sitting there talking to me, and not trying to kill me or hurt me at all. She's just telling me this story about that goat. But _why_? If she was truly the muttation that the Capitol showed me she was, if she really desired to kill me, why didn't she just do it there?

The video ends and I can see the doctor in front of me, talking to me, asking me questions. But for the life of me, I can't answer, because I am so _confused_ about what I just saw. Eventually, he leaves me alone. My mind just can't comprehend what I just saw, at all. If… if Katniss took care of me there and told me that story just because I was an injured boy who wanted to hear a story, then what does that mean for me?

What does that mean about her? And then my head hurts, really, really bad, and I can hear myself grunt, while the pain mingles with the confusion. Is she good? Is she bad? My head is telling me she's completely bad, but then I can't argue with what I saw. Can I?

The two versions of that scene in the cave that I know play. One where Katniss is leaning over me and trying to kill me, taking delight in my pain, and another, the one that I just saw. With her trying to comfort me. Which one of them is real? Are either of them real?

The longer I spend trying to decipher the meaning of the video, trying to decide if what I saw is the truth or a lie, real or not real, the more muddled I become. To help me come to an answer, something deep inside of me kicks in, and clears the air. Forget it. Forget her look of concern and how it appeared that she was helping you.

I squeeze my eyes closed.

Forget.

Forget.

Forget.

And when I open them, I see the doctor standing in front of me, and he gently asks, "How do you feel, Peeta?"

"Confused," I answer truthfully.

"About what?" he wants to know.

So I dig into my brain again, what is the question I need the answer to? Oh, yeah. "What happened to the goat?"

His eyebrow raises and he has to clear his throat twice before he answers, "Goat? Oh, right, well, it was nursed back to health by Mrs. Everdeen and Primrose."

Right. The healers, of course. That makes sense. I don't think they are evil, though, I think it's just Katniss who is a muttation. I'm pretty sure, anyway. Soon, the doctor brings in a tray, and I see that it's dinner time. "Where did lunch go?" I ask him.

In his serious way, he tells me, "Well, after you went through today's technique, you were quite unreachable for… several hours. Eclipsing lunch altogether."

Hours? But it only felt like a few minutes, at most. Regardless, now I'm hungry, and if I wait too long, dinner privileges are taken away, as well. Though I know I must be reaching, I ask, "Would it be possible to be able to eat this whole meal with my own hands?"

He seems to weigh the options in his mind, and I would plead my case more, but I just don't feel like it all that much. He knows as much as I do about my ability and stability to eat by my own hands, and it's up to him to allow it or not. "Okay," he says, after a few minutes of debate.

He goes to unlock me and as soon as he does, I reach for the food, scooping it up in slow, small bites, though I would rather have it in bigger ones. I have to savor it. Savor the time I have freed. It's all too soon before the tray is empty and he sighs, "Sorry to have to lock you back up again, but it's the policy on you for now."

I shrug and try to pretend that it doesn't really bother me, even though it does. But while I lie down and he straps me back in, before he can leave for the rest of the night, I ask, "Could you give me something? To make me go right to sleep?"

Because I don't want to spend another night like last night, where I had hours and hours to reflect on what has happened to everyone in my family, and only my misery for company. I can't handle that again. I don't know whether or not the doctor knows why I'm asking – maybe he was watching me last night when I was crying through that window. Could have been, for all I know – but he nods, and goes over to a cabinet.

Pulling out a syringe and a small bottle of liquid, he fills the needle up to a certain point, holds it up to the light, and brings it over to me. "See you tomorrow," he says, and I nod in response, as he injects me with the substance.

It's barely a minute later when my eyes close. When I wake up, it's the next morning and no one is in here. With a yawn, I look around, and wonder what everyone else does here in District Thirteen. I've spent my time here in this one room, doing nothing every single day. Basically the same thing as I did in the Capitol. Just slightly less painful.

Are they supposed to be making me feel like a prisoner here? Because I do. I sigh and bounce my head up and down on this little bed. Bounce. Bounce. Bounce. Bounce. Bored. Bounce. Then I pick up a little tune to go along with the rhythm of my bouncing.

Finally, when my neck muscles are too tired to keep it up, my head just falls back down and I stay there. Hello, ceiling tiles. One. Two. Three. Four. Five.

…

Two-hundred and six. Two-hundred and seven. Wait. Are those footsteps? They are, because my door opens and the doctor walks in, once more wheeling in a television and a tape player. What do they intend to show me this time?

The doctor seems to have heard my unvoiced question, "We have something slightly different to try today, Mr. Mellark. But first, lunch."

I don't even ask this time, but he lets me out of my restraints and allows me to eat without them. But right after I've finished, he puts me back in them and tells me, "Yesterday, we showed you a clip that you've known before. Today will be something entirely new to you. All I'm going to be asking you to do is tell me what you feel about it when it's over. And you won't be receiving a calming drug for this one, either."

So he hits play, and I watch the screen as it opens up to Katniss' face. My hands clench and I hold tight to the sides of the bed, but my anger is controllable right now. I'm sure the doctor sees that as progress. I'm not leaping up and trying to strangle her, though I do have the urge, despite the fact that I know she's only on the screen right now.

I'm about to look away and take some deep breaths, to get my emotions under control, when she starts,

"Are you, are you  
>Coming to the tree<br>Where they strung up a man they say murdered three.  
>Strange things did happen here<br>No stranger would it be  
>If we met up at midnight in the hanging tree."<p>

She keeps singing and the birds around her fall silent and I feel something strong pull at my memory, so I let it take me. I was six, maybe seven-years-old, and my dad had me sitting up on the counter of the bakery. It was a Sunday, and Sunday hours were always odd ones, just what my dad determine he wanted to work. He was showing me how to open the cash register. When we heard him coming.

This song, this song that I heard and it sounded so sad but so beautiful, like a work of art my grandmother would paint only put into verse form. My father nodded in the direction of the open door, "Listen, Peeta. Listen to his voice, and even the birds will stop singing so they can hear, too."

So I went deadly silent, and listened, and when I heard his clear, melodic voice – so similar to the one that belonged to the girl in the red dress – and the birds _did_ stop to listen. It was only the second time I ever heard it happen.

When I come back from my walk down memory lane, she's still on the screen, singing the last line of the song, and a quiet voice in my head, a gentle reminder shows me, a blurry look of a girl in a red dress. And my stomach doesn't tighten in fear or hatred. It just… _is_.

The doctor shuts off the television and stands in front of me, asking, "What did that video make you think of? Feel?"

So I answer him about the memory I had, and I don't have this little shadow hanging over my heart for the first time in what feels like a very long time.

* * *

><p><strong>Sorry I haven't updated in a while, I'm going through some personal matters. I know that sounds like a dumb excuse, but it's really not. The next chapter will be up my Valentine's Day. Hope you enjoyed :)<strong>


	9. Dreamweaver

Rigid routine riddles my upcoming days, which turns into weeks, here in Thirteen. Every day, right after I wake up, I have my small breakfast, I sit and am bored in my room until lunch, and then the doctor, whose name I still do not know, shows me clip after clip of what he and the other panel of specialists tells me are the _real_ Hunger Games I went through.

They don't seem nearly as bad as the clips I was shown in the Capitol, and I find that while I still can't bring myself to get over this animosity I feel toward Katniss, day after day I do become less convinced that she's a true muttation. Because what they show me just doesn't make sense or add up to what I had become convinced was true.

A voice inside of me comes to me every day and wills me to watch the videos of her and encourages me to accept that she's not so evil as I thought. It's a soft voice, a gentle, warm voice, but sometimes it just messes up my mind like that time with the goat and I can't speak at all again.

I don't know what it is about her that makes me so insane. I just don't understand her, but I know that regardless of whether or not the Capitol was lying to me about her being a muttation, she still isn't as great as I had thought before. I think that could be the one good thing that came out of my capture: I see Katniss Everdeen with clear eyes now, not the clouded ones of love.

The only person who isn't a doctor they allow in to see me now is the same person as before: Delly. At times, I'm grateful to see her face. The face of the only person here who I remember from happy, simple times, but at others she frustrates me, mostly when she comes to Katniss' defense. Be Katniss Everdeen a muttation or not, she still doesn't deserve to be treated like a prodigy or something, like these people – especially Delly – seem to treat her as.

There are other changes in me, too, and I feel them getting stronger every day. The involuntary jerks and movements my hands and feet made after all of the tracker jacker venom in the Capitol had long since stopped the after they repeatedly injected with the relaxant. I don't feel constantly weak, and the doctor doesn't make me spend all of my time restrained now.

For a small period of time after lunch, after I admitted that I didn't view Katniss as a mutt anymore, I am allowed to stand and walk around. My legs wobbled at first, after me having been tied down and not using them for weeks, but now they're strong, and I run tiny laps around this stupid bed.

I'm starting to feel better, like a real human again, and it feels good. In my vast free time, I try to not think of my family or any extra thoughts of Katniss, because she gets most of my day as it is. Instead, I work on keeping my hands steady, and I imagine what it would be like to draw again or paint again or bake again. Because as damaged and different as people may claim my mind is, I _know_ that I love doing those things.

One day, after I've gone through multiple weeks of this conditioning, after my progress has been made, and right before I'm untied to eat lunch, the knock on the door lasts much longer than it usually does to drop off my tray. The doctor spends over double the amount of time he usually does just grabbing the food from the kitchen courier, chatting in hushed voices, so I know it's about me.

What else is new?

When the doctor nods and shuts the door, he looks at me and carefully walks over, "Mr. Mellark… I have gathered some information about upcoming events that are to be taking place."

Waiting for him to undo my restraints so I can eat the food, I shrug, "So? I assume 'events' have happened here several times after I got brought back."

He places my tray down, "Yes, but this is a particularly big one. There's to be a wedding ceremony. For Finnick Odair and Annie Cresta, to take place in a few days."

This does give me pause. Finnick Odair, who did save my life several times, who bonded with me on the beach of the arena over our love for certain women, but after knowing everything that I know about him I now know he wasn't doing it because he was a good person or because we were friends. He did it for Katniss. To keep her happy. Isn't that just what she has everyone whipped into shape to do?

I shake these thoughts off, and now I just feel a little bit grumpy. What do I care if he's getting married? Should I feel happy that Finnick is going to get a happy-ever-after now that, say, my family never will? Because I _don't_ feel happy for him. I just feel annoyed. "So? I doubt I'll be getting an invitation. Can I please eat my lunch now?"

He undoes my restraints, and I reach for my tray. I only get a few bites in when he says, "Well, here in District Thirteen, we don't have many – any – celebrations, and what we do have is never very fancy. But this year they have a … planner here, who wants to do a big celebration. Apparently, it's very important that Finnick and Annie have a lavish wedding, complete with a chorus of children who sing the District Four wedding song, people making tons and tons of decorations… and a fully decorated cake."

I stop in mid-chew, because of the mention of the cake. And then I realize what the visit was all about, "They need someone to frost the cake, don't they?"

He nods, "Indeed. They would like your talents, but I told them that I'm not sure you're up for it. I have enough faith in your rehabilitation thus far to allow you to frost it if you should so choose. But remember that this is a choice. It's completely up to you."

And even though I do miss baking, frosting cakes, just the sheer art of it all, I don't say yes right away. Because if I do have a mishap, it means that I'll most likely lose my privileges of being unshackled that I've worked so hard for. It means being in close contact with a very personal aspect – a wedding – of someone who gives me great annoyance and reminders of Katniss. But on the other hand… I'd be getting out of this room, the only place I've seen in weeks. And I think I'm strong enough to handle it.

Besides, it's _frosting_, and I've been desperate to get back to any activity of yesteryear that I possibly could. And this is one of my favorites. Tentatively, I say, "Yes. I think I can handle it."

He places his hand on my shoulder, and says, "I think you can, too. I also believe it could be very therapeutic for you."

I start that afternoon. Right after I finish my lunch, the doctor knocks on the door and a guard that I assume is always standing out there, opens it and hands him shackles for my hands at feet. These are much more different than the restraints I wear. They're colder, sharper, and they make me feel more like a criminal and less like a crazy person. I think I like them better than what I've been strapped into.

The doctor reopens the door, and gestures to the guard, "He will be escorting you down to the kitchen to work on the cake for a few hours today. At dinner time, you will be brought back here. If, at any time, you act out of line, he has a sedative he's been ordered to use. Now… go frost that cake."

So the guard takes me by the middle of the cuffs and walks me down a hallway. It's a starch white, the white of a hospital, and then we turn down a few hallways – never running into anyone else – and then we come to a set of double doors. He leads me through them and then I know we aren't in the hospital anymore.

Still walking through a long hallway, but now, when we turn a few corners, we see several people. All of them stop and look at me. Stare, really, and a few point. Whisper. What, haven't they ever seen a guy who'd been hijacked by the Capitol and then tried to kill their Mockingjay rebel leader before?

Ha. Sometimes, yeah, I do find myself amusing. After a bit more walking, going down a set of stairs, and through another set of double doors, we enter a kitchen. As soon as the doors shut behind me, I feel this sense of completeness. I belong here, in a kitchen. It's like a second home to me, and the second I see the large cake they are working on placing the layers, I'm so utterly thankful that they are letting me do this.

Two more guards file in after me, and all three of the ones surrounding me in their gray uniforms are armed. In silence, they lead me to the cake. The kitchen staff here back away and regard me with suspicion. I ignore them and just focus on the cake. It's a five tier, yellow cake beauty. They did a fantastic job baking it. I say as much, and a few of them seem to relax for some reason.

I don't exactly understand why, because me saying they made a good cake isn't the same thing as me telling them I won't spontaneously try to kill them the way I tried to kill Katniss. But whatever. This isn't about them. It's about the cake.

"Could I see a piece of paper and a pencil, please?" Almost immediately, a kitchen staff member gives my demands to a guard, who then hands it to me.

I walk over to a counter and place the paper down and sketch the cake, then tap the eraser against the edge. Finnick and Annie's cake. Making a cake is just like creating a painting. It's not so much about what you put on the canvas – it's about the subject matter. And the subject matter is Finnick and Annie.

Back in District Twelve, we had gotten in a few orders for wedding cakes. Not many, because not many people who get married there have enough money to special order a cake. But all of them that I've made are a pristine white, with decorations of flowers and lace. Something tells me they do things differently in District Four. Cake styles would be like breads, wouldn't they?

So on the back of the paper I make a list of all that I know about District Four, starting with their sandy beaches, to their strange trees, to their – water. Water, of course. Both Finnick and Annie revive in water, don't they? This cake has the potential to be a masterpiece. An ocean. So I flip the paper back over and start to sketch.

On the sides of the cake there will be steady etchings of the waves, a completely around, even design. But on the top layers, there will be a scene like a sea. Sailboats, made of fondant and hardened sugar, with fish "in the water" – painted into the frosting. During my brief time looking out into the waters during my Victory Tour, there were animals, poking their heads out of the water. What were they called again?

Oh, right. Seals. I'll make their heads with the same material I'll make the sailboats, and then underneath, like with the fish – in the frosting – there will be the outline of their bodies. By the time I'm done sketching, an hour has already passed. I won't have enough time today to do any more than make frosting.

The staff gets me the ingredients and all of the food dyes they have, and I mix them together. The exact blue-green I'm going to need takes a while to perfect, but the more time I spend making it just right, the easier it is for me to lose myself in the frosting. I don't feel like I'm in District Thirteen anymore. I feel like I'm in the bakery, and my father is right next to me, kneading out the dough.

But all too soon, someone taps me on the back, and my hand that's mixing the frosting jerks as I'm brought back to reality, and the person who works in the kitchen steps away from me quickly, "Sorry to disrupt you. But we need to put everything back in it's storage space so we can prepare dinner."

With a deep breath, I let go of the connection I was feeling to home, and place the frosting bowl on the counter, "Sure. No problem."

But it's with great reluctance that I follow the guards back out the door. As the same one leads me back to the hospital, there are a lot more people milling around. A lot more staring and whispering, and it frustrates me a lot more. I'm not some sideshow freak. If anything, these people who have been inbred in District Thirteen for seventy-five years are the freaks. While they point, I scowl.

It's almost a relief to be back in my little room. The doctor is in here – I'm not sure if he never left or if he anticipated my return – but the guard leaves us in here, with me still in my shackles. The doctor leans against the wall, "Well, Mr. Mellark, the head chef said that you were remarkably well behaved today in the kitchen. And as you should know here, good behavior here is repaid with privileges. And large accomplishments, like yours today, means a larger reward."

He steps forward and unlocks my hands first then my feet, and I automatically step backwards, lifting myself onto the bed, preparing for him to restrain me. But all he does is shake his head, "Nope. Your reward is that you get to spend the night in here, unrestrained."

Surprise causes my mouth to gape open, and for the first time in a very long time, I feel the fluttering of excitement inside of me. "Really?" I ask.

He nods, "Really. Keep up the good work, Mr. Mellark. Your dinner should be here soon, your guard will bring it in. And I'll be seeing you tomorrow morning."

I sit on the bed until the guard brings in my dinner, and I scarf it down quickly, and then look around my small, spare room. Carefully, I push myself up onto my feet. Unrestrained, unshackled, free for all night feet. I walk back and forth a bit, then start to run, around and around the room. Then when I think I might fall from leg cramps, I drop to the ground and start a set of push-ups. I do them until my arms burn and I basically collapse onto the floor.

Tired out – truly tired, which I haven't been since before the Capitol had me, as I did practically nothing every day, just like I'm doing now – I just lie on the floor. I don't want to sleep on the bed. Not where I've been forced to sit on or lie on for like a month. No. I'd rather lay right here on the floor.

So I do, and I close my eyes, my cheek resting against the cold, hard, cement, and I fall into a deep sleep.

In my dreams, I'm back in the kitchen, mixing the frosting. While I do, there are no shackles, no guards, and no kitchen staff. I'm alone, content to mix by myself. But all of the sudden, I hear a voice from the side of the room say, "Pathetic."

I whip my head up and see Lucern, leaning in the doorway, arms crossed, and feet crossed at the ankle. "What?" I ask him.

He walks forward, "I called you, Peeta Mellark, pathetic."

I've been in this scene before. I know I have. But I can't place it. So I just roll my eyes, "Okay, Luc." But this time I do something different, "Why am I pathetic now?"

He slides his hand along the counter, "Because I only exist as a person inside of you right now, and I know what you need to hear. And the fact that you're dreaming of me telling you how pathetic you are just screams that you really are, indeed, pathetic."

Suddenly, my mixing bowl and spoon are gone, and I look around. It's just us, in a white room. And his last statement just gutted me, "So. You're really only here because I'm dreaming."

He laughs in his so familiar Lucern way, "Of course! You may be rewired now, little brother, but you aren't crazy. I'm dead. I died in a fire, months ago."

The back of my throat burns and I feel like my heart is constricting, "But I wish you were really here."

"I do, too. But listen," he reaches over and puts his hands on my shoulders, "I may not still be there, but _you_ are. And you need to do your best to get better, because you can do great things. You are alive for a reason, okay? Thyler and I, we've always known you were different than we were, Peeta. Better than we were. Destined for more than we were. So it's up to you to live up to our expectations."

I look up at him, my lazy but smart older brother, which his sandy blonde hair and blue eyes that match mine, and… "I miss you."

He has my shoulders still in his hands, and I feel it happening inside of me, but I can't stop it – my throat clogs and tears form in my eyes, leaking over. All of the pain I've felt with missing him in the last few weeks but held back comes out, and he looks unsure, but then says, "Come on," and pulls me into a hug. It's strange, I'll admit, but I hug back. Moments later, he pulls away, "I know I'm no dad, but I figured you could use one of them."

"Thanks." I tell him, meaning it, as I reach up and wipe at my eyes.

"Whenever you need a cool older brotherly dream hug, you know where I'm at." He taps my head with his finger, and then there's a knock on the door to this all white room. I look over at the door, and when I look back, he's gone.

There's another knock on the door, and I go to open it. Before I reach the handle, it swings open of its' own accord, and Thyler is standing there. He steps into the room, looking around, his eyebrows lifted as if he's impressed, as he takes off his jacket, "Niiice digs, pal."

And now when I look around, it's not just a white room, but it's my hospital/cell room. I smile back at him – because it's so good to see him, "Yeah, I keep it classy here."

His face sobers and as he looks at me seriously, my grin completely slides off my face. He reaches up and takes my shoulder in his hand, saying, "I have something to tell you."

Feeling unsettled, I reach up and brush his hand off my shoulder, "What? What is it? It's about the baby, isn't it? About Haylee, too? They hate me, because of what I did to you, to all of you."

Thyler puts his hands into the air, his serious face gone, laughter replacing it, "Peeta, stop. Haylee and I don't hate you, and neither does the baby. It's kind of like the opposite."

Confused beyond belief, I wait for him to continue, but he doesn't. "Are you going to tell me, or what?"

His smile is soft now, gentle, when he looks at me, "We're happy where we are, Peeta. It's beautiful here now. Lela, your niece, was almost a week old when it happened. But don't worry, because now she'll have a full life. An afterlife. Death isn't the end."

Far off, I hear a cry, and he gives me a wave, "I have to go. Take care, baby brother." And then he walks out of the door. But the door doesn't close, because my dad steps through it.

I run to him, and into his welcoming arms for a hug, and when I do, as sobs wrack my body, I can feel him shaking from his own crying. After a few minutes, we both draw back, and he keeps his hands on my shoulders. Warm hands, that always let me know he was proud of me. His voice is hoarse as he says, "You're smart, and you're strong. Those are two huge advantages right there."

I nod, and his words make me feel as good as I can right now. I wait another moment before I whisper, "It's hard living without all of you, really hard. And I'm lost here. So lost. I don't know who I am anymore, dad."

My dad blinks and holds his eyes shut longer than usual, then opens them again, "You're a good man, son. You'll figure it out. You don't need my guidance for anything anymore. I have confidence in you that you'll always end up doing the right thing."

I reach up and wipe at my eyes again before more tears can fall and whisper, "I love you, dad."

"I love you, too, Peeta." He says back to me, and then there's a shaking on my body, a hand reaching into my sleep and pulling me out.

When I open my eyes, my dad is gone and so is everyone else. Instead, the doctor is here. And the ground that was beneath my head is wet with my tears. "Good morning, Mr. Mellark," he says to me.

"Morning." I respond and my throat feels raw.

He doesn't ask my why I'm not laying on the bed and just places the tray in front of me, "Now, eat your breakfast. Because the wedding is tomorrow, and apparently, you're to have a long day decorating that cake."

While I sit up and start in on the breakfast, he leans against the bed. I think of the dreams I had and how they felt so _real_ to me, and I pause while I eat. "Doc... do you ever think dreams are real? Like maybe, somehow, you can have conversations with people who aren't really there?"

He lifts a brow down at me, and clears his throat, "I think, perhaps, they can be real _to you_. Just because something isn't tangible doesn't make it useless."

I let his words sink in and keep eating. By the time I'm done, the doctor puts on my shackles again and pulls me up, leading me to the door, and sending with me with my guard down to the kitchen. They already have my frosting mix out, as well as the cake.

I throw myself into getting it done all day, working first to create the fondant and letting it harden as I cover the cake in frosting, then carefully go back and create the waves in the water. They bring me lunch and I decline it, instead choosing to use that time to create a dove white foam to dabble onto the tops of the cresting waves.

By the time that is all figured out and done with, the fondant is ready, and I mold it into a perfect image of a sailboat, then it takes me a bit longer to do the seal. I enlist the help of two members of the staff who have taken to staring at me while I work, and direct one of them to sculpt seals and the other sailboats, while I go back to the cake and create fish within the waves. It just doesn't seem like enough. It will be magnificent, I'm sure of it, but there has to be more beauty on it. After all, it is a wedding.

I close my eyes and try to think of the oceans there. And then I remember the beautiful sea flowers that floated on the surface of the water, the soft pinks and purples of them. Getting out the ingredients for the icing once more, and the dyes, I recreate the colors, and make the small bouquets that contrast nicely with the sea color.

By the time that's all done, so are the seals and the sailboats, and I take them carefully from the kitchen staff and place them on the water of the cake. As I start making the seal bodies outlined in the water, I also decline dinner. Meals here aren't very large, and I know I shouldn't be turning away food, but when I'm working like this, and on a deadline like tomorrow, my appetite isn't making an appearance.

Finally, I step back. It's beautiful. And I feel… proud. Like I've just created a work of art that's beauty is radiant and will be admired. Which, I guess I have. Someone from behind me, from the staff, whispers, "It's beautiful."

"Yes, it is," I agree with them.

But as soon as I do that – acknowledge that it's done – the guards are on me again, leading me back to my room. We pass much less people this time, because it's past dinner time and most people, I assume, are in their quarters. I wonder what other rooms – real rooms – are like. All mine has in it is a bed and those cabinets with medical supplies.

He leads me in and takes off my shackles, because the doctor isn't there. Once again, after actually working on something for the whole day, I'm tired.

I don't lay on the bed again, but choose the floor. And this time, when I dream, I don't have interaction with dead people. Instead, there's a static, image, and I have to fight to bring it to focus.

It's raining. It takes me a moment to decipher if that's real or just the static, but it's really raining. I'm in the bakery, and I see Katniss. She's rooting through our garbage cans, and I can see how skinny she is, how desperate she is, and I'm _terrified_ for her. My heart is beating like a jackhammer, and after my mom chases her off, I watch through the window as she stumbles through the yard and just falls on the ground.

She is going to die, and there's this love I have for her, and the terror at losing her so soon, before she even knows who I am, before she has a chance to actually live, is so real my hands are shaking. My mother orders me to take out the loaf of bread from the oven and as I open the door to the oven, I know that it's up to me to help her. So I drop the bread in the ashes, and my mother starts to yell. I turn and summon up my courage, and close my eyes against her incoming hand.

As soon as the stinging is on my face, she taps it again for another doe of pain, and says, "You ruined it. Go feed it to the pig!"

To the pig? No. "Okay." So I throw her the bread. And she lives. I see her the next day at school, my heart in my throat at the sight of her, the sheer beauty of her, and I want her to look at me. Maybe, if she does, I can get up the courage to talk to her. After all, isn't the ice already broken? At least a little bit? But she doesn't look at me, just bends down and picks a dandelion. Her, holding the flower, in the sunlight is a scene so beautiful makes my breath catch in my throat and I'm certain I'll never forget it.

Then I flip my eyes open and look around the hospital room. And I know that that wasn't just a dream, because the images from it are now firmly planted into my head, and I _remember_ that happening. I remember that love, those feelings, so clearly…

The doctor opens my door and I guess I have a strange look on my face because he asks me what's on my mind.

I answer with a truth that I didn't think would be something I would say in the next million years, "I want to see Katniss."

* * *

><p><strong>Tell me what you think, please :)<strong>


	10. Katniss

The doctor's eyebrows lift so far they practically disappear into his hair, "Are… are you sure you're ready for that? Do you think it would be beneficial to you at this point in your rehabilitation?"

"Yes. Don't you? Keep me strapped down in the chair, keep a knock-out drug on hand. Please. I need to do this." I need to see her, see the girl who can stir up these feelings in me just from a memory. The girl who caused me so much trouble. The girl I can hardly think about without feeling sick.

He regards me carefully, "Well, today is the wedding. So she's going to be busy for quite a while." He stops talking, and stares at me, and I stare back at him. We're squaring off, and I'm not going to back down. Finally, he breaks eye contact and looks down, "Let me confer with the others while you eat your breakfast, and I'll get back to you."

I concede, because, really, what did I think I was going to get? A smile and full consent to see the girl they work so hard to protect here, after I tried to kill her? Starting in on my food, he leaves the room to talk to the other doctors, who – I assume – watch me through the wall. After I'm done eating, the door opens once more, and the doctor comes back in.

"After a discussion, we have come to a plan of action. We must test your reaction to seeing someone who you will likely associate with Katniss, and whom you might have unresolved emotions about. If we think your reaction is satisfactory, you _might_ be able to see Katniss. Take it or leave it." He crosses his arms.

"Take it," I tell him, because it's the only chance I have.

"All right then, hop up onto the chair. For both of the meetings, you'll have to be restrained." He tells me, and I follow his orders.

Tightly, my arms and legs are locked up. I wonder who they'll be bringing in to me. After all, the only person so far besides doctors, guards, and kitchen staff – all of whom are District Thirteen born and bred – that I've been allowed to see is Delly. I don't even know who else made it here instead of six feet under.

It's not long before I find out. There's a knock on the door, and the doctor opens it, then Haymitch steps in. Haymitch, who I've tried not to think about since that time in the Capitol.

Haymitch never cared. He doesn't care. He left me to die.

Anger rolls up inside of me and makes me clench my hands, but I don't fight the restraints to get at him. I don't want to free myself anyway. I don't want to kill him, I don't even want to hurt him. Honestly, I don't even want to look at him. The doctor steps out and shuts the door behind Haymitch.

He steps forward, looking awkward. "Hey… how's everything?"

I ignore his question, "Hey, Haymitch, how'd that whole rebel plot you hid from me work out?"

His face all tightens, and he takes a deep breath, "So, you're mad about that. To be fair, kid, you did want me to keep Katniss alive. I was just working for it with a different angle in mind."

I scoff, "You don't have to remind me of my past errors. I should have let you and Katniss go into that arena. I never should have volunteered for you. You called me a fool before. And you were right. Always trying to look out for others, for people that didn't give a damn about me, when I should have been taking care of myself."

He shakes his head, "You were the best of us all, boy. The best."

This drunkard, sloppy man before me, someone I viewed before as one of the greatest allies and friends I could have, disgusts me. "Yeah, and look where that got me."

"I was doing what you wanted, you know. If the hovercraft had went to get you out of the arena too, we would have blown way too much time, and all of us would have been captured, including Katniss. Our goal in there was to keep her alive, remember? I took your words at your value. You were ready to die for her, and you wanted her to be safe." He tells me, with his eyes not meeting mine, instead looking over my shoulder.

My hatred for him rivals what I'm feeling for Katniss at this point. "Yeah, maybe the pathetic boy I used to be was willing to die for that girl. But I _didn't_ die, did I, Haymitch? I was tortured. I watched people die. I watched my best friend be electrocuted. And when I'm "rescued" I find out my family and everyone I used to know is dead. I have no idea who I really am or who to trust." He looks down now, and I'm glad that I hurt him, but at the same time just saying these things aloud hurts me, too. I want him to go, and I end our visit with, "The Capitol may have been the ones who messed with my head, Haymitch. But you were the one who let them."

He nods and clears his throat, and then leaves the room without another word. After I take a few breaths and calm down, I rethink the past few minutes. Overall, I would consider that a success. I remained calm, despite what I was feeling. I think that bodes well for a meeting with Katniss. The doctor comes in, and studies me from the doorway for a few minutes before saying, "You're very angry."

"Great observation," I tell him dryly.

He walks over and takes my pulse, "Racing. And yet you kept a relative cool. No struggling to get free, no fidgeting. That's a very good sign, Mr. Mellark. I'm going to make a recommendation that you are fit to be in the same room as Soldier Everdeen."

For an inexplicable reason, I feel glad that I've passed this test, that I can see this girl that I hate, and yet I also feel angry that she's going to be in the same vicinity of me. "When is she going to be coming?"

He hesitates now, "Well, the wedding is today, as you know. Haymitch is going there, now. And it's not like when you make a request it must be granted. She has to be the one to make the decision to visit you. And if she does, there are precautions we must take and procedures that must be followed. So be patient."

Of course, everything is at Katniss' leisure. What else is new? After all I've done for her, isn't that the least she could do for me? Coming to talk to me, while I'm completely restrained and can't harm her?

I look back at the doctor, who is making a little note on his clipboard. He clears his throat, "Well, there's the celebration going on. Your lunch will be brought to you in a few hours. I'll let you spend your time unrestrained for the day."

The entire day. I'm to be in there, by myself, alone, with only a bed for company, for the entire day. As he lets me out of my binds, before he can leave, I gesture to his notepad. "Can you give me a few sheets from that? And leave your pencil?"

I didn't think it was too much to ask, but he pauses for a few moments and doesn't respond either way. I add on, "Please. Everyone in this place is going to be having a good time today, and I would very much like to not sit in here with nothing and no one for company."

He sighs, but relents, and rips out three pages for me, then gives me his pencil. After he readjusts his clipboard, he proceeds to leave the room and lock it. I just stare at these empty pages, not knowing what to draw. It's like there's nothing inside of me that calls to be shown. I close my eyes and try to think of who or what I want to see staring back at me from the page.

I remember the paintings from my home, the ones that were wall to wall, of almost everything I knew, but mostly of _her_. Her face covered my easels because I loved her. And now I'll draw the others that I love. Their faces are so vivid in my mind, from that dream. I draw my father first, and then add in my mother behind him. Where he is smiling back at me, she's scowling with her arms crossed. Just like it would have been in real life.

In the corner I draw Luc, laying down, his arms under his head, eyes closed, hair messy and uncombed. Then, on the side opposite from my parents, I draw Thyler, his hair short and dark, with his arm around Haylee, and in her arms a little bundle of a baby. The baby.

Lela, he called her in my dream. I know it might be dumb, but I file away the question to ask the doctor. There must be someone out there who knows what the babies' name was. Delly should, for starters. Her parents owned the shop right next to ours, and her parents would always chat with my dad. No doubt he told them of his granddaughter.

Then I fill in the rest of the paper, drawing the bakery off in the corner near my parents, with Luc laying in the sun, and Thyler, Haylee, and the baby all standing near a picnic table we had out back. _I love you all_, I think, and put the paper aside, placing it up on the bed. Then I think of Portia. What happened to her after that last time I saw her? After she was tortured? Is she dead?

My pencil meets the paper once more and this time it's her face. Smiling brightly, as she usually was, her hair glossy and curly. The twisting in my stomach confirms that in a way, not knowing her fate is worse than knowing the death of my other loved ones. Soon, there's a knock on the door – the guard is warning me that he's going to drop off my lunch.

When he opens the door and deposits my tray on a counter, he makes to shut the door as quickly as possible, but I stop him, "Could you please get a message out to the doctor? I have a few questions for him that I would like to be answered as soon as possible. Thank you."

He nods and then shuts the door, locking it behind him. I walk over to the counter and eat my lunch, wondering if I'll ever be seen fit to get out of this room. There's a party going on, one that everyone in this district is at. Dancing, laughing, having a good time. And I'm here, all because they couldn't bother to save me from the Capitol. Stuck in this room. They can call it a hospital room as much as they want, but this is a cell. Like it's my own fault I was captured and tortured, like I deserve to be cooped up in here every day.

They tell me I loved Katniss more than anything in this world. I can see it in the tapes they show, sometimes even feel the remnants of it swirling around inside of me. They tell me that the Capitol messed around with my head and just made it appear that Katniss was evil, that they fooled me into thinking she had my worst interests at heart. But she couldn't have cared about me all that much, could she? Because if I loved her like I believe I did, I wouldn't just leave her alone like she's been leaving me. I volunteered to go into the arena to protect her, but she hasn't even come to talk to me?

After I'm done with my lunch, my door opens again, and the doctor is here. He lifts a brow, "I've been informed that you have some questions for me."

Confused, I say, "I thought you were at the celebration."

He shrugs, "Well, we just had some cake." He gives me an approving nod, "Which was a hit, by the way. I'd heard you were a baker, and an artist, but I didn't know you were that good."

I look over at the drawings I'd done in the past hours, "Thank you. So, if you're here, I'd like to know two things. The first… what happened to Portia? Does anyone know? And my prep team, too."

He immediately tightens up, and clasps his hands in front of him, and when he inhales deeply, dread sinks in, because I know. "They're dead," I say, but my throat is so tight it comes out in a whisper.

I stumble backwards, feeling like my stomach is a pit of emptiness, until I run into the bed and I grasp the sides, trying to take deep breaths. The doctor keeps his distance, and I try to blink away the tears I feel coming and manage to ask, "How?"

"Maybe you should get back up on the bed," he says, but I don't want to hear it.

"Tell me how it happened!" I demand, and just keep telling myself to hold onto my sadness. Keep it in, stay calm.

He takes a deep breath, "The night you were rescued, they were executed on live television."

They were killed because I was saved. They were left behind. "Why weren't they broken out, too?"

"It was difficult enough to get you, Annie, and Johanna out, and you were priority. Besides, they were all Capitol citizens. We weren't entirely certain if they were being held or where, if they were." I see him edging toward the cabinets, where they keep the liquid that knocks me out.

But I don't want to be knocked out. Instead, I hop up onto the bed, grabbing the pictures I drew and carefully placing them on the counter, before telling him, "Go ahead. Strap me in." Because I don't want to do anything I'll regret. While he does, I tell him quietly, "They were being held. They were being tortured. And they should have been a priority."

He finishes knotting my restraints, and on his way over to the cabinet, he sees my drawings. He picks the one up of Portia, "You cared for your stylist."

"She wasn't just a stylist. She was my best friend." My grief is starting to overwhelm me and I can't see anything through the stream of the tears. "Just go back to the _party_."

He steps toward the door and hesitates, "Did you have another question to ask me?"

Sniffling, I cough to clear my throat, "My oldest brother, Thyler. He had a baby, she was born in the time that I was in the arena. I want to know her name."

With a nod, he leaves. Portia is dead. All I can hope is that it wasn't too painful, that it was quick. But who am I kidding? Snow had her killed on live television to make a point, and I doubt it was quick. Why couldn't she be saved instead of me? I have nothing to offer anyone here, nothing at all except for negative emotions. And they have nothing to offer me. No parents, no brothers, no sister-in-law or niece, no old friends, no best friend, no… nothing. Just nothing at all.

I lay my head back against the bed. It wasn't just Portia. It was Ravilla, and Leontius, and Talia. They were all innocent. They hadn't done anything wrong. Except for care for me. I close my eyes and let my mind drift, trying not to think of them or my family or Katniss or Haymitch – basically anyone – for hours.

Then the door opens and the doctor comes in once more, this time bringing in dinner. His face is downtrodden, when he hands it to me. "I have spoken to Ms. Cartwright. She told me that your brother's baby was indeed born, and her name was Lela." Quietly, he walks over to me, "She was only five days old."

"Lela," I breathe it out. But how can that be? It makes no sense, none at all. Maybe I heard Thyler and Haylee mention it before I left. Yeah, that has to be it. Lela Mellark, five days old. Sadness is everywhere here, even more than in the Capitol. There, it was just pain. I think this despair is worse.

My eyes close and only open again then I feel his hand on my shoulder. Cloudy with tears, I can still make out his face, and the emotion on it. "I'm sorry, Peeta." It's the first time anyone has called me by my first name here besides Delly. The first time he hasn't referred to me as 'Mr. Mellark.' He keeps talking, "I realize nothing here is the way you would have hoped. But your luck may be turning. Soldier Everdeen has agreed to come see you. The request is going in to head personnel and is being moved forward as we speak. She'll be granted permission within a few hours."

"Okay." I tell him and close my eyes once again. I'm surprised when I look inside myself and find that I really do want to see her. I want to see the girl who caused everything, who did this to me and my family and became the spark of the war. The girl I was supposedly willing to give up everything for. I want to see what is so great about her.

It's hours later when that wish is granted. Midnight, to be exact, when the doctor comes into my room and readjusts my restraints, so I'm sitting. Then he sets up an automatic injector of that liquid that knocks me out, "In case you get too worked up," he explains.

And then he leaves the room, probably watching through the wall. When the door opens for Katniss to walk through, I half-expected to feel nervous. But all I feel is an intense curiosity, burning along with the anger that just the thought of her brings me. And then she steps into the room. My stomach settles, and I feel incredibly proud of myself that my urge to fight the restraints and strangle her.

Even inwardly, aside from this boiling hatred, I don't feel an all-consuming need to pummel her. I guess the doctor is right. We are making progress. She walks close to me, and says in a flat voice, "Hey."

'Hey' is all she can come up with? And why does she find it necessary to stand so close to me? Well, I guess she doesn't seem to be doing anything exactly _wrong_ right now, but still… "Hey."

She gets on my nerves when she speaks again, "Haymitch said you wanted to talk to me."

I snap, "Look at you, for starters." _So shut up for a second and let me look._ I look down and start at her feet, moving up slowly, trying to take in every inch. The first thought I have is that she is surprisingly small. She has caused so much pain, suffering, drama, trouble… and she's just so small. She can't be more than a few inches over five feet, and she's hardly more than skin and bones, with not much muscle at all. Then I move my gaze up to her face.

I know that I used to find her beautiful, stunning, lovely. The clips they show of me looking at her, the barely there, whispers of thoughts I have tell me that much. But now I don't see it at all. Her lips are practically bordering on thin, her eyes are almost too large for her face. And they aren't an exotic green or anything. Just plain gray. Her cheekbones are sharp and jagged. Her hair is average, pulled back into a ponytail. What was so great about the way she looked? How did she cause such an uproar? "You're not very big, are you? Or particularly pretty?"

She narrows her eyes at me, "Well, you've looked better."

Laughter rumbles out of me in response, because _her_ giving _me_ an attitude? Now? What a... _bitch_. "And not even remotely nice." The only reason I was ever even in the Capitol and hijacked is because of her, and then she insults me, "To say that to me after all I've been through."

"Yeah. We've all been through a lot," she says to me. She says more, but I don't listen, because my rage fights to take over. Oh, has she been through a lot lately? The last I checked, she didn't get taken and tortured by the Capitol. She doesn't spend every day locked up in a cell, and no one she loved died in the bombing of District Twelve. Yeah, _her_ life is looking pretty fucking grim right now.

But when she starts walking toward the door, I don't want her to leave yet. I haven't had my fill, haven't said my peace. And I search my mind for something big enough to stop her from walking out. Why not the only memory I have of her that gave me a glimpse into what I used to feel? "Katniss," Her name feels strange to say on my lips without saying it in fury, "I remember about the bread."

That stops her, like I thought it would, and she regards me with confusion, "They showed you the tape about it."

But now I'm confused, "No." There is no tape of what exactly I remember, because it wasn't her talking about it, it was the real memory. "Is there a tape of you talking about it? Why didn't the Capitol use it against me?"

"I made it the day you were rescued," she tells me. Well, that was a dumb thing of her to ask, then, because obviously the Capitol couldn't have gotten to that memory. "So what do you remember?" she asks me.

I narrow my eyes, trying to remember the dream, and as I do, I tell her what I recall in fragmented sentences. When I finish, she confirms that what I dreamed of was real, and then adds on, "The next day, after school, I wanted to thank you. But I didn't know how."

The next day. When I saw her and she picked up the flower, and I thought that she was a beautiful girl with a flower in the afternoon and the scene was so charming and I was sure that I would love her forever. Annoyed at that boy I used to me, thinking of how I used to have those thoughts all of the time, I say questioningly, "I must have loved you a lot." Because even though I know it's true, I want a confirmation.

And she gives it, "You did." And then she just coughs, like _oh, whatever, no big deal._

I keep my eyes on her, and she just keeps hers down. I want to know the answer to a question that plagues me, a question that only she can answer. And maybe, with the right answer, it can make everything I'm going through easier. "And did you love me?" Because even though the sight of her makes me crazy with revulsion, maybe everything I've gone through can feel just a tiny bit better, knowing that the reason it happened wasn't just a one-sided love. Maybe I won't hate her quite so much if I know that she loved me back.

But she still can't bring herself to look at me when she answers, "Everyone says I did. Everyone says that's why Snow had you tortured. To break me."

_Everyone says_. "That's not an answer." But I know the answer, just because of that. If she did love me, she would have said so. So basically, I was a pathetic loser who ended up this way because of a girl who didn't love me back. A girl who confuses me, and sometimes doesn't even make sense in the tapes that they show me here, the tapes that are supposed to tell me the truth about the Games. "I don't know what to think when they show me some of the tapes. In that first arena, it looked like you tried to kill me with those tracker jackers."

I don't know what I'm looking for when I admit to this confusion. Maybe a confirmation, perhaps a denial. But I find myself satisfied when she answers, "I was trying to kill all of you. You had me treed," because I think that she is actually telling me the truth.

Maybe she can clear up other things, too. Like the personal things. "Later, there's a lot of kissing. Didn't seem very genuine on your part. Did you like kissing me?" I have to ask, even though I think I already know the answer. She didn't love me, and our romance was an act. That's what these rebels refuse to tell me, but it's something I know.

She surprises me by saying, "Sometimes." Then she looks around and tries to change the subject with, "You know people are watching us now?"

"I know." Oh, am I supposed to not ask the questions I want answer to just because people are watching us? People were watching us throughout our entire 'relationship' and they continue to watch me every day. This girl is ridiculous if she thinks something like that is going to stop me from asking what I want to know. "What about Gale?"

_Gale_. Just his name bothers me now. Before, I can blurrily remember thinking that he wasn't all that bad. My weak, lovelorn self was accepting of him and sympathized with him. But not me. He's hardly a step above Katniss, now.

She crosses her arms, and I can see that she's getting frustrated. Good. It means I'm striking a nerve. "He's not a bad kisser, either," she tells me.

Huh. I knew she had a thing with him and he was in love with her. But I never knew what came of it. I wonder if old, weak Peeta knew about that. "And it was okay with both of us? You kissing the other?"

"No," she tells me, tilting up her chin, like in defiance, "It wasn't okay with either of you. But I wasn't asking your permission."

WOW. Wow. Seriously, this girl. Huh. This time, when I laugh, it's not out of the amusement of irony like it was before. No, this time, I'm laughing at myself, for having been in love with this girl. What the hell was wrong with me? Muttation or not, she is clearly no prize. "Well, you're a piece of work, aren't you?"

When she turns and leaves the room without another word, I shake my head. I have no idea what is so special about her. What about her captivated me. What about her captivates the nation. And I honestly don't care very much anymore to find out.

* * *

><p><strong>I loved writing this chapter, honestly, it was one of my favorites. While reading, I personally felt bitter on Peeta's behalf for everything (everyone) he had lost, so I loved writing how I imagine he would feel knowing that he virtually has nothing left. How he got beyond that in the novel mystifies me, and I thought Katniss was basically like a spoiled child in Mockingjay when she would talk about "how much she had lostsuffered". Anyway, those are my thoughts on this subject. Hope you enjoyed :)**


	11. Deals

After the visit I had with her, my recovery comes along very smoothly, according to the doctor. There are times when, out of nowhere, the thought that Katniss is a mutt and it's my job to kill her enters my mind swiftly. But I can handle it. Most of the time. It takes a lot of effort to keep myself under control when bad thoughts occur, but I do it.

Every day, they still show me images and clips of Katniss. They've basically done their job. When I'm in my right mind – most of the time now – I know that she isn't evil or a muttation. They do push me farther, and try to make me see that she's good, sometimes they make me try to "reconnect" with that old love I had for her.

And while my head knows the general consensus that she's not bad, I'm far from convinced that she's good. Maybe she's the symbol of the rebellion – which I also see as a relatively "good" thing now, too – but they can show me all of the video clips in the world and it won't fool me into thinking she's a good person. My only encounter with her that isn't fed to me by video or fettered by old ghosts of emotions only told me that she's a rude girl who doesn't care about anyone else's feelings.

I spend a week of watching clips of Katniss, of myself, of us together, in both arena, of her in propos and other videos they have of her. They don't have me strapped in, and they don't give me a calming drug. And I hold myself together, just hating her quietly on the inside. Hating her for how she so clearly used me, for how she lies to me about caring for me, for how she'll continue to kiss me and lead me on, even after she stomped on my heart after the first Games.

And I grow to hate myself, in a small way, too. For loving her so much, for being her lapdog, for not caring about all of her _humongous_ flaws and weaknesses. For always being there for her, willing to take hit after hit of her not loving me. My next personal goal is to make me see myself as just one Peeta. Because generally, I look at myself as the old, weak, lovesick Peeta, and the new, damaged, hijacked Peeta.

One morning, right after we finish some clips of Katniss, a few minutes before lunch should be arriving, the doctor looks at me with a smile, "Mr. Mellark, you have come remarkably far in a short amount of time. And after an entire week of being able to watch those tapes without giving a negative response – especially without restraints – I have received clearance to offer you a deal."

Curious, I lift a brow at him, "What kind of deal?"

"The kind of deal where you can eat lunch in here with me, like every other day. Or you may go to the dining hall, where the others are all eating. Of course, should you choose the latter option, you should know you will be under heavy surveillance, with two armed guards, and you will have to wear your manacles, like you did when you went to the kitchen to decorate the cake." He gives me the options, then sits back and waits for an answer.

He doesn't have to wait long, though, because I want desperately to leave this room, and I think I'm ready to test out the waters with real people. "I want to eat in the dining hall," I inform him.

The doctor nods, "I thought you would say that." He walks over to the door and knocks on it, which leads two guards to open the door and walk in. One of them carries the handcuffs I wore down to the kitchen, and the other waits with an expressionless look with his arms crossed.

When I'm secured, one of them takes position in front of me and the other behind me, and we walk to the dining hall. When I walk in, I'm distinctly reminded of the cafeteria from school back in Twelve. I always loved lunch, sitting with all my friends, and usually Luc and his, too, and getting out of classes.

But back then, I wasn't the weirdo who attracted stares from everyone I walked by, like I am now. I recognize some of the faces staring at me, back from home, but most of them are a mystery to me. Most likely citizens of Thirteen, or from other districts taking refuge here while the war wages on in their homes.

When I go to get my tray of food – the first one I'll ever have gone to retrieve myself rather than having it brought to me in my hospital cell – it's Greasy Sae, from Twelve, who hands it to me. I never knew her well, but we've made conversation when she's come into the bakery, and she knew my dad from when he would trade with her.

She's clearly surprised to see me here, but she covers it quickly, "Peeta, look at you, gracing us with your elusive presence."

I used to be so good with words, but now I have no idea what to say in response. Part of me tells me to laugh and make a joke about how I've been kept under wraps. But a larger part of me wants me to stay silent. So I do, and just hold out my hands for a tray. She gives me a _look_ as she hands it to me.

It's difficult to hold, because I can't just grab on to both edges to balance it, so it rests on top of my fingertips, just barely keeping steady. Then I turn around to look around the room. There are no empty tables, and I would prefer to sit alone. As it is, I would rather not sit with a stranger who will just give me furtive looks and gossip about me.

So I search the room for – ah. There they are. Everyone I know here – minus Haymitch and the randoms from Twelve – sitting at one table. Katniss. Gale. Johanna. Finnick. Annie. Delly. All one big happy table over there. With a deep breath, I mutter, "Here goes nothing," and I walk over to them.

As soon as I approach, I know that I'm interrupting. Everyone who was smiling or laughing – most of them – become serious when they are aware that I'm here now. Well, everyone save for Delly, who is always smiling. She keeps the smile on her face as she says, "Peeta! It's so nice to see you out…" she trails off, clearly not sure where to go, and I finish it in my head with _and in shackles!_ But she finishes with, "And about."

I just nod at her, not giving a response. What is there to say to that, really? Johanna, with her ever winning wit, asks, "What's with the fancy bracelets?"

As I look down at her, I think of how she's really the only one here I genuinely like. Katniss and Gale… bleh. Finnick is hardly above them, probably on the same level as Haymitch. Annie is just crazy and I have nothing _against_ her, just like I have nothing against Delly either. I would actually like Delly, if she didn't always come to Katniss' aid so much. "I'm not quite trustworthy yet," I inform her, and I wonder if I will ever be. This is as far as I can imagine coming by way of liking Katniss. Sick of just standing here, I add on, "I can't even sit here without your permission."

Johanna slides over a bit and pats the space next to her; I knew I liked her. "Sure he can sit here. We're old friends." While I sit down, Johanna comments, "Peeta and I had adjoining cells in the Capitol. We're very familiar with each other's screams."

Yep. The old me wants to shake my head at her for bringing up the Capitol while we're sitting here, and the other me wants to laugh. So I do what I've become accustomed to doing lately. Remain silent, tuning out the conversation and remarks made in favor of eating lunch, until I hear my voice come out of Delly's mouth, "… Peeta who decorated your wedding cake? Back home, his family ran the bakery and he did all the icing."

I look up and when I do, Annie is looking at me with her kind of cloudy/kind of lucid eyes, "Thank you, Peeta. It was beautiful."

She seems so fragile – not just how she looks, but something about her, and it prompts a piece of old Peeta's gentleness to come out and say, "My pleasure, Annie."

Finnick stands and excuses them to go for a walk, and looks at me, "Good seeing you, Peeta."

Yeah. Good seeing you, too, after you left me in the arena for the Capitol to take. That was the hijacked Peeta talking, and my hand tightens on my fork as I search for something old Peeta would say. He would make a joke, something funny, acknowledging the newlyweds. I think. So I go with the first thing that comes to mind, "You be nice to her, Finnick. Or I might try to take her away from you."

It doesn't get delivered well, because I didn't mean it and I felt no humor. That must be why, right? Oh well, a joke gone awry. Nothing to get worked up over. And then Finnick says, "Oh, Peeta. Don't make me sorry I restarted your heart."

Wow, that was completely uncalled for, wasn't it? I was just trying to tell a joke, and just because it didn't come across right, he makes something of a death threat. Unnecessary. Feeling annoyed, I just try to dig into my lunch, but Delly just adds on to it, just does her Delly thing and just keeps pushing me in my annoyance, by saying, "He did save your life, Peeta. More than once."

Oh, Finnick Odair makes the uncalled for comment, and _I'm_ the one getting admonished. That seems fair. With a deep breath, I relax my grip on the fork and breathe deep before I speak the truth about Finnick. "For her. For the rebellion. Not for me. I don't owe him anything." In fact, given where I stand right now, I might have been better off dead.

I'm just trying to sit here and eat my lunch now, I don't want any more conversation, because I'm becoming extremely frustrated with all of these people around me – perhaps I should have eaten with a stranger – but Katniss, of all the people here, decides it's a good idea to egg me on, "Maybe not. But Mags is dead and you're still here. That should count for something."

"Yeah, a lot of things should count for something that don't seem to, Katniss." For instance, all of the things I've done for you to try to keep you alive and safe should count for something. But I'd rather say something that will get her as angry as I am, rather than make her "feel bad" so I stick with, "I've got some memories I can't make sense of, and I don't think the Capitol touched them. A lot of nights on the train, for instance."

The way her jaw tightens satisfies me, and that's when I really notice Gale here. Oh, Gale, you irritating waste of space with a foolish weakness for Katniss. He's glaring at me, probably for making the implication that Katniss and I ever did anything more than snuggle on those trains. I remember what really happened those nights just fine. But it's far more fun for me to let the implications – which will make Gale Hawthorne desperate to know the truth about – rampant.

Because of the way he's looking at me, like he would like to strangle me, I can't resist giving him even more temptation. After all, if he actually does attack, it won't be me who bears the consequences, will it? Besides, what I'm about to say next is something that I want to know for myself anyway. "So, are you two officially a couple now, or are they still dragging out the star-crossed lover thing?"

They're sitting ridiculously close to each other, and it's clear he's willing to "protect her honor" if need be. I think it's a legitimate question. Shouldn't I have a right to know if the rebels are still exploiting the citizens still out there by using my and Katniss' relationship?

Johanna is the one to answer my question with her telling me, "Still dragging."

Great. Even while I'm locked up in a cell trying to become a relatively normal person, they're still using me. The thought of being used angers me, and my hands start to shake again. I close them tightly, willing myself to calm down, when Gale says, "I wouldn't have believed it if I hadn't seen it myself."

I narrow my eyes at him, "What's that?"

"You," he tells me.

God, he's frigging annoying. "You'll have to be a little more specific," I tell him, deliberately keeping my voice light, keeping in mind the guards behind me, "What about me?"

Johanna informs me, "That they've replaced you with the evil-mutt version of yourself." Great. Now she also joins the ranks of the incredibly annoying people I know.

Soon enough, the love birds leave. I still can't believe Johanna referred to _me_ as the mutt. I mean, I may not believe Katniss is a mutt any more, but she's clearly the most vile person here. Remaining silent, I just concentrate on eating my lunch with our small group already cut in half. Johanna is silent, as well, but it only lasts for a minute before, from across from me, Delly throws down her fork on her tray.

I look up at her in confusion when she starts telling, "Peeta Mellark, you can't just treat people like that! The way you acted to Katniss, to Gale, even to Finnick and Annie, is reprehensible!" Every word she says goes an octave higher than the one before it. Johanna is sniggering, and I think I would be, too, if her words didn't frustrate me so much.

I don't even have a chance to say anything in response before she continues, "Everyone, especially Katniss, has gone through so much lately, and I don't know if your doctor says it's okay to go around talking to her that way, but not when you're around me, do you understand?" And then she marches off.

"Katniss has gone through a lot lately?" I call after her, "Why does she get all the sympathy?"

But something about Delly brings old Peeta to the surface, and he takes over, "Shut up. You're causing a scene."

"No, _you_ shut up and go back to wherever it is you came from. I can make a scene all I want. What right does everyone have to make me feel bad? What did I ever do to them?"

"Stop acting like a victim! Take control over our life, damn it!"

"I have control!" I scream back, "It's you who's making me lose it!"

And then the guards both take an arm and pull me out of my seat, yanking me with them down the hallways and back to the hospital. While we go, I don't struggle, but one of them still sticks me in the neck and releases the drug that knocks me out.

When I resurface, the doctor is above me and I'm lying down in the restraints. "I heard about your trouble at lunch. Why don't you tell me about it?"

So I relay the entirety of my outing, talking about my growing anger at everyone around me with their annoying comments, starting with Finnick, then Delly, then Katniss, then Gale, then back to Delly. "Wouldn't that get on your nerves, too?" I ask him.

After a moment of consideration, he inclines his head, "Yes. Yes, it would. I understand why you got angry, Mr. Mellark. And I'm going to tell you the truth – I'm proud of you. You lost your temper, but you didn't physically try to take out your anger. It's a normal thing to get mad at others. And it shows extreme control on your part that you maintained a nonviolent surrounding. What I _am_ concerned about, though, is when you argued with yourself. By all accounts, it was as though you were two people. Please enlighten me."

I don't know what it is about the doctor. Maybe it's because he's the only person here that I actually do feel like cares about my well-being. It is strange, I'll admit, but it's true. He calms me, for inexplicable reasons, he's the only one I trust. He doesn't treat me like he expects me to be someone else, and I trust him enough to let him know. I admit, "Most of the time, I just have this one mindset. But when I get angry or sad or… sometimes just over little things, I feel like there are two people in my head. One of them is a gentle, weak one, and the other is a callous, righteous one."

He narrows his eyes in thought, "Maybe… we've been focusing too much as of late on making your peace with Katniss, and we have to work on making your peace with yourself."

So for the rest of the evening, he gathers videos and clips of me and we go over my behavior and actions in them, pointing out every move I make, every emotion I convey and we dissect it. Why we think I was going what I was doing or feeling what I was feeling.

We continue this for the next two days, and within that time, we compile pages and pages detailing the personality of Peeta. Then we draw a line and compile a list of qualities that describe my actions and thoughts and feelings now. While we do this, I learn about old Peeta, and I come to see him as slightly less pathetic, though not much.

The doctor and I review the lists and relearning myself does help. The two voices don't completely stop arguing, but they do quiet down. We have an understanding, all of us. The doctor stands one night after I've finished my dinner, during which time he gave me possible scenarios and I had to tell him how I thought I should react, then compare it to how old Peeta and hijacked Peeta would react, "You learn quickly and your progress is incredible. I'm going to leave you with the lists tonight, and tomorrow, I'll see what I can do about you eating lunch in the dining hall again."

Before he can leave, I stop him, "Actually, don't. Please. It's not that I don't think I can handle it, because I'm sure that I can, but… I don't _want_ to be around the people who make me mad any more than I have to be. If that's okay."

He nods, "It's your decision, Mr. Mellark. Well, I'll see you tomorrow, then."

After the door shuts behind him, I look down at the lists I have, detailing personality traits that belong to me, somewhere deep inside, when the door opens again. Suspicious, I narrow my eyes, "Who are you?"

She has stone gray hair and eyes, and for some reason, just looking in them makes me feel chilled, "Alma Coin. I'm the president here in Thirteen."

Maybe that's why I don't trust her. Then again, I trust the doctor, and he's a District Thirteen doctor. Cautiously, I look her up and down. She doesn't seem like much or like a power to be reckoned with, "How can I help you?"

"I've heard about the progress you've been making. It's steady and strong, and a greater accomplishment than I think most in your situation would achieve. Because of that, I have an offer to make you," she says, and lifts a brow, "Are you interested?"

Am I interested to know why the president of District Thirteen came to see me personally with an offer? Um, yes. "It depends."

Her eyes narrow slightly but her voice is even, "I'm going to give you the choice. You can remain here, in this hospital room, and remain as Mr. Mellark. Or I can give you clearance to go out with the others your age and workout and train during the day, letting you become Soldier Peeta Mellark. How does that sound?"

It sounds suspicious. I'm barely allowed to go get lunch without manacles. But if she's making this offer, and she can make it happen, I'll do anything to get out of this room and go somewhere other than the dining hall. "It sounds like a deal."

* * *

><p><strong>Ugh, seriously cannot stand Coin; I hate her more than I hate Snow. That is all.<strong>

**Thanks for reading and please review!**


	12. Hello War

The very next day, two guards arrive at the door, and the doctor doesn't make an appearance at all. They eye me wearily, but I leave the room without my shackles. I guess I can't do whatever training Coin had in mind with them on. Clearly, the guards don't like leading me around without them, but if it's their "presidents" orders, what are they going to do?

When we get outside by 7:30 sharp, I'm surprised to see that Coin assigned me to this particular group. Not because it's clearly the younger kids, because I haven't gone through any of their training yet. But because Katniss is standing in the same group as I am.

After spending so much time cataloguing words describing myself, it's become somewhat of a habit to start doing it to everyone. And right under Coin's name in my head, I file down the word suspicious. From across the group, I see Katniss and by how tense she is, I know she knows I'm here.

But all I feel toward her is a vague annoyance. It's easily brushed away in favor of my concentrating on what the trainer is saying. The biggest word I have in the file of Katniss is _enigma_. And apparently, my enigma is training here in the same group I am. Which is strange, considering that she should have been in these ranks for months already, right?

The woman in charge marches up to me and says, "Welcome to morning training, Soldier Mellark. I am Soldier York, your commanding officer."

I nod at her, "Good morning, Soldier York."

She gives me an odd look, but just continues to say, "Try to keep up, soldier."

And then starts to instruct the stretches. Keep up? After being cooped up for so long, this stretching makes my muscles sing in beautiful harmony. Then she moves us on to strengthening exercises, like push-ups and sit-ups, which I also flourish at, having been doing them in all my spare time up in my hospital cell. My body feels like it's coming back from a dark place, and the more of a workout I do, the better it feels.

To finish up, Soldier York leads us on a five-mile run. I'll admit, the run isn't as great feeling for me as the other exercises were, but I manage to complete it, albeit huffing and puffing at the end. By nature, I'm more of a lifter and a muscle builder. Not so much a runner.

Soldier York gives us a few minutes off for a lunch break, and I sit off from the rest of the group with my guards, and eat my food in peace, waiting to find out what training consists of after lunch. I hope it's more workouts, because despite being a bit winded from the five miles, my body craves the activity.

When lunch time is over, I'm put in a different group, with Katniss and Johanna now across the field from me. Soldier York walks back and forth in front of us, and while doing so, assembles a gun slowly for us to watch her and learn, then she orders for us to do it ourselves.

I can hardly believe they're allowing me to assemble a gun. I do it, and manage to finish second out of my group, but I'm still marveling at the prospect. In my hand, right this second, is a gun. A real gun, that the rebels are teaching me to use… yesterday, I didn't even have the privilege to go to the dining hall without armed guards and handcuffs. Something is just not right.

But I'm not about to challenge this or argue, so I just do as they tell me, assembling and learning about their weapons. The first day goes without a hitch, and they continue to let me train for the next few days. Then a week goes by, and everyone I was training with moves up, moves on to simulators and other things that I'm not allowed to try.

I'm not surprised that I'm not permitted into those places, but I don't understand why they keep calling me out to train every day before and after lunch, handling weapons, if I'm not allowed to go any farther than this. Once more, I'm content to remain confused rather than question it and get the right to leave my room and come outside unshackled every day.

People around me, everyone I know from training after watching them from across the field, eventually receives the news that they will or will not be accepted into combat. I hear through the grapevine that Johanna doesn't make it. Something went wrong in her simulated environment or something. I also hear that Katniss does make it.

They ship out the soldiers within days of the news of who made it and who didn't. Which includes Soldier York and everyone I had been training with, and many people from District Thirteen. The only bonus there really was aside from me getting up and about, was that my demonstrated exercise of control during the exercises cleared me to be able to go to the dining hall for my meals every day, without manacles, and with only one guard. Though I suspect that "one guard only" part is only granted because they who they consider my biggest threat to them – Katniss – is gone.

I don't care. More freedom is more freedom, and I'll take it any way it comes. During breakfast and lunch I sit with Johanna, and sometimes Delly. The thing about my changing from when I first met Johanna is that I understand her a lot better now. In some ways, it makes us get along better. In others, we're very alike now in our cynical ways, and we butt heads easily.

Which is what prompts me, on the third night that the soldiers have shipped out, to sit at an empty table rather than over with her and Delly. Delly, especially, gets on my nerves a lot here. She is never failingly smiling and happy, and it never bothered me _before_ but now it's after, and there's only so much peppiness a guy can take.

While I'm sitting alone, a shadow appears across the table from me, with a gruff voice that asks, "Can I sit here?"

While bringing my food to my mouth, I pause. That voice is utterly familiar to me, and yet it's been a long time since we've spoken. I look up to see Haymitch, holding his tray and giving me a raised brow. After a few seconds of deliberation, I relent, "Sure."

As he sits, I watch him. I've put it together that he's sober, because they are pretty no nonsense here, and what more would you expect from them? We regard each other carefully, and I think of the last time I saw him, how angry I was. Now, I don't even feel the slightest twinge. Now that is what I call improvement in the highest sense of the word.

He pokes around on his tray for a moment, before taking a deep breath, "You listen to me, boy, because I'm only going to say this once. I'm sorry for what the Capitol did to you, and it wasn't easy for me to know what was going on, to see you on the television. That being said, I had a job to do, and the job is bigger than you and it's bigger than me, and it's bigger than Katniss."

I lift my hand to stop him, "Haymitch, I understand. I understood then, too, but I just… I had a lot of anger. I still do, sometimes, and most of the time I have it, I don't even know where it's coming from. Before… I would have wanted you to save Katniss instead of me, anyway. I'm not saying I would make the same choices today, but that's what I wanted back then."

He looks down, "I was there, you know, every day for your recovery. And when we first had you back, it terrified me, kid. I thought for sure you were never going to be back to anything resembling normal. But here you are."

I listened to all of his words, but _it terrified me, kid_ gives me pause. There's real emotion in his words there, and for some reason it makes something inside of me shift. Like something's clicking into place. And I almost want to cry and laugh at the same time. Quietly, I say, "In the Capitol, most of their time was devoted to showing me things of Katniss. But there was a time where they showed me you. And it really hurt, because their words seemed so true. 'Haymitch doesn't care. He never cared. He left me to die.'" I repeat.

I watch him when I say the words and he rubs his hand over his eyes, "Jesus. Okay, once again, I'm only going to say this once, as well. Leaving you behind killed me, because I do… care. About you, more than almost anyone else."

"Except for Katniss," I finish, and he shrugs and nods.

We finish up our meals from that point on in silence. As soon as my tray is done, the guard urges me to get up and head back to my hospital cell and I look at Haymitch before I go, "Hey. Don't be a stranger. You know, the only visitor I ever have now is the doctor. He's fine and all, but it gets repetitive."

He gives me the ghost of a grin and I leave the dining hall feeling almost good. Almost like I used to feel, just the slightest bit off. The guard brings me back into my room, and deposits me there. When he shuts the door and locks it, I don't turn and face the bed until I hear the voice, "How would you feel about a combat situation, Soldier Mellark?"

I spin around to see Coin in here again, trying to wrap my mind around what she said, "Combat? Like… real combat?"

She nods, "Squadron four-hundred fifty-one has recently experienced a soldier down. We need one to go in and take her spot."

Wait a second… "Four-hundred fifty-one? Isn't that Katniss' squad?" What is this lady thinking? Is she crazy? But she just nods and keeps her face the same as always, set in stone. "I don't… I haven't been through as much training as everyone else has. Wouldn't I be a danger to everyone there, more than a help?"

She shakes her head, "Oh, no, Soldier. You'd have a gun in your possession of course, but it's all for looks. See, four-five-one is a star squad. For propos and appearances, primarily made up of Katniss, Finnick Odair, and Gale Hawthorne. You would be going in to help them heat up their propos. No _real_ combat."

The news sinks in and I may not be able to read people the same way I am able to in the videos and the tapes they show me, but I know enough to see that she has something else up her sleeve. But, to be honest, do I really care? She's giving me something more than I could ask for from anyone here: the chance to leave this prison.

Do I think I'm actually ready to see combat? Well, no, I'm not. But she did say I won't be in combat, though. And besides, if I do die, what do I have to lose? A small handful of people who I barely have any memories of that don't make me hate them and the animosity of my peers? Oh, no, please don't take me away from _that_.

I look her in her creepy, light gray eyes, "I want to go."

So she gets the ball rolling, putting me on a hovercraft that takes me to Twelve – strangely – and then on an overnight train ride into the Capitol, where I'll be meeting with my squadron. I'm sure Katniss, Gale, and Finnick will all be thrilled to see me. The knowledge that they'll be extremely bothered by my presence hardly bothers me. I don't get the same gratification from that as I did before, but nor does it worry me. I just… don't care.

By the next evening we show up in the Capitol and they dress me in soldier attire and hand me a gun. A woman stamps my hand with the number _451_ and says, "Good luck, Soldier Mellark," to me as the door opens.

I wave to her and put the gun strap over my shoulder. Here goes nothing. The gun bounces against my hip, it's weight foreign and unfamiliar, and I was partially wrong: the look of shock and unadulterated distaste on their faces _does_ kind of amuse me. Seriously, you'd think they would all move on from that whole I-once-tried-to-kill-Katniss thing by now. But the guy, who I would assume is in charge, marches right over to me when I reach the group, fury written all over his face.

"Your weapon, Soldier Mellark," he says, holding out his hand. I'm not entirely sure who he is, but I'm not going to start problems right away, not when I just got here, so I hand it over. It's not like I liked having it all that much, anyway. With his eyes narrowed, he shakes his head and mutters, "We'll see about this. I'm going to make a call."

He stomps away and I shake my head in pity, as I look at the other faces of the group, "It won't matter. The president assigned me herself." Yeah, the look of sheer upset and surprise on their faces really does satisfy me. When they all continue to look at me with their dumb expressions, I try to continue to explain, thinking of what Coin said to me when she gave me the assignment, "She decided the propos needed some heating up."

This makes them all look around at each other, and throw particular worried looks at Katniss, while they all kind of do a synchronized half-turn to leave me out of the group.

Hello, war.

* * *

><p><strong>Hope you enjoyed the update! Let me know what you think... the action is just beginning.<strong>


	13. Pieces of Peeta

Before I can decide what to do, Boggs barks out my name and gestures sharply for me to walk over toward him. I start to lazily make my way over, just because I can tell it's annoying him that much more, and continue to do so even when he wildly points his finger down to the space next to him, as if to yell _hurry up!_

Finally, when I reach him, he just eyes me up and down while on the phone with who I'm assuming to be Coin, "Are you crazy?" he asks in hiss. I can't hear her response, but he grinds his teeth together, "Of course, ma'am," he spits out, then after she makes one final comment, he disconnects the phone without a word of goodbye, and glares at me, "Don't you try any funny business here, _Soldier_ Mellark. All eyes will be on you."

I try to remain impassive as I look him in the eye, "I understand. And with all due respect, I didn't beg or even ask to be sent here. I'm not some sort of – of animal that everyone here seems to think I am."

He just gives me a skeptical look, and I just stare back at him, because I don't think I have anything to be sorry for right now. I haven't done anything to deserve this distrust from anyone here, save for that once instance, months ago. Months of me being put through intensive therapy, making so much progress that I feel almost like a person again.

"Follow me," he orders, then shakes his head, "Actually, you walk in front of me. Back to camp," he demands, and I go, the hair on the back of my neck standing at attention because I know he's pointing his gun at my back.

He directs me over to Jackson and I realize I'm not the only person he orders around rudely, as he glares at me through the corner of his eyes and tells her, "I want you to set up a two person, round-the-clock guard on him. There will eyes watching his every move, understand?"

She, however, seems to take the direction much better than I do, though maybe that's because he doesn't look at her like she's the dirt underneath his boots, "Yes, sir."

Jackson whips out a small notebook from seemingly nowhere and starts writing and mumbling to herself, looking around. She points to one of the soldiers from Thirteen, "You, and…" then her eyes wander before latching onto a target, "Soldier Odair, front and center."

Once Finnick and the other man are standing across from us, she says, "You two are on the first guard for Soldier Mellark. I'll let you know when your shift is done."

She stands there for a moment, sizing me up, much like Boggs did. However, if she's judging me half as much as he did she's not showing it. I have no problem with her, unlike Boggs who just gets on my nerves, and I look around at everyone in our Squad, who are pretending not to look at me but are actually looking at me. They're making me feel like an insect under a microscope, which is funny given how many doctors have been observing me for weeks.

I turn back to Jackson, just as she turns to walk away, and I stop her by saying, "Soldier Jackson," my referring to her in a respectful way is something that surprises myself because it was so natural, but I go with it, "I don't want to make any trouble here." Sighing, I really just want to get away from these peering eyes and actually do something, so I look at the ground a few feet away, "Could I just pitch my tent? Please?"

This politeness is something that the Old Peeta felt, and I don't know why I'm feeling myself do it now. And even though my current psyche looks back on how I used to be with contempt, I feel strangely pleased with myself. Maybe this is a sign that I'll be able to move on from the dark few months I went through and be okay.

She narrows her eyes and looks me up and down, zeroing in on my face before relenting, "Fine." She salutes Finnick and the other soldier before walking away and writing down in her notebook.

I don't speak to either of them and walk over to where there is the empty space available for my tent. I hear them both follow me, but they both hang back and don't seem to be too concerned about me. Granted, they're both taller, stronger, and armed with guns, so there's really no reason they should be concerned.

I've never pitched a tent before, but it turns out that it's not that difficult. Only halfway through, I her that Katniss is back. I can't hear the words she's saying, just her voice, and where it once made me beyond angry, ready to kill, now it barely affects me at all. My stomach clenches in response, but I am okay. With a deep breath, I feel relieved. I feel _proud_ of myself. I am okay.

Moments later, though, I _can_ hear her voice as she practically screams, "I wouldn't be shooting Peeta. He's gone. Johanna's right. It'd be just like shooting another of the Capitol's mutts!"

Now I can't help but look over at her, and I can see out of my peripheral vision both the soldier and Finnick stand up at attention, but I just shake my head and manage to look back at the metal rods in my hands, and for a second, I forget what I'm doing and I feel a bit lost. She wants to shoot me, that's what I gathered out of that outburst. My hands tighten a bit on the gear I have, but I take a deep breath through my nose, then out my mouth.

_You haven't done anything wrong, Peeta,_ I tell myself. Katniss' problem, whether it be with you or anyone else, is not my problem. I just have to remember that. Keep my head up, eyes clear, and hold onto the knowledge that Katniss is just a bitter, rude, emotionally stunted girl, and I will be okay. I am okay, I repeat, and make myself continue to build the tent.

Putting something together, even if it's as simple as the tent, makes me feel better. I feel calm and competent, and I really like the way that feels. It's a feeling I haven't had in much too long, and I want to hold onto it.

As soon as my little tent is completely put up, a shrill whistle goes off, making my heart rate spike, and I jump, looking around. Are we being attacked? Then a hand lands on my shoulder and I recognize Finnick's voice right behind me, "It's just the dinner whistle. Come on."

The soldier from Thirteen who's been silent stands by and stops Finnick from leading me over to where everyone else is gathering for food. Once every other person is in line for dinner, he leads us over there, and we stand in line as well. I'm careful to stay right behind Finnick, not even an inch out of line. This is the only time I've been out of shackles without real District Thirteen guards in months. I'm not going to screw it up. I'm determined to stay level-headed, and so far, I'm doing so well. I think as long as I stay away from Katniss, stay away from getting wrapped up in anything personal, I'll continue to do well.

When at long last, I get my plate, we go to join the others, and sit down to complete the circle they've all made. Conversation is scarce right now, and I think the silence might be getting to some people, but not me. I've been living in silence for so long, this is normal. Though I've been getting a lot better, physiologically as well as psychologically, my hands will still have random spasms.

It seems that with all of the action I've experienced today, those spasms are acting up. Several times, I have to put my hands down and let my fork _clink_ back onto my plate and make a fist to get the muscles cramping back under control.

"Problems with shaking?" Finnick asks me in a quiet voice.

"Um, yeah," I answer, and find myself surprised at the traces of concern I hear in his voice. The last I checked, he hated me and I wasn't too fond of him, either. But right now, I don't mind him. Maybe my irritation with him faded? I don't know, but I'm grateful.

"I have something that can help. After dinner," he says by way of explanation and goes back to eating.

The silence is so loaded but I refuse to look up and make eye contact with anyone who I'm sure is looking at me. I gather that I'm the cause of the silence, even though I _haven't done anything_… deep breath. It's all right. What do I care what these people think of me, anyhow? Old Peeta, he was a people-pleaser. He loved having people love him.

Me? I know most people here hate me already, so why bother?

As soon as my plate is cleared, before Finnick can show me what he had mentioned, Boggs is standing over me, looming a shadow. God, I don't know what it is about this man that just makes me angry. Maybe it's because I can tell that if he had a choice, he would probably kill me. Maybe it's because I know he's in Katniss' pocket and doesn't look at the situation through anyone else's eyes. Either way, he just puts me on edge.

"I have to put my plate away," I tell him and try to follow Finnick and my other guards' suit to stand, but Boggs pushes against my shoulders when I try to move.

The fact that he touched me with the feeling of aggression makes my stomach clench and unclench and clench again, while my first instinct tells me to shove him back. Now annoyed, I manage to stay put and glare up at him, while he nods to my two guards, "You two take care of his plate for him, and find us when you're done."

They nod and walk away, while Boggs takes a step back, "Follow me."

I do, and while he leads me back to camp, for a split-second, I wonder if he's going to kill me. He draws me away from the group, angry, he's armed, he's killed before I would assume… no. Coin wants me alive, and he wouldn't go against her. Would he?

I'm really not sure, but even though I feel like he's bringing me to my imminent death, I can't make myself feel anything more than my original annoyance toward him. After everything… would death really be that bad?

But he doesn't kill me or even pull his gun. He stops short and looks at my tent, "What is this?"

"My tent," I answer slowly, like he has trouble comprehending human words, which I know frustrates him because I can see a little vein in his forehead start to pop out.

He shakes his head, "You're not to sleep in there. You'll sleep in full view, where the rest of us can keep an eye on you."

Oh, because I can really have a fighting chance to kill Katniss – which I barely even want to do anymore! – with two armed guards on me at all times. Honestly, the fact that these District Thirteen people are inbred really shows sometimes given their intelligence. "I don't even get the same courtesy of everyone else by being able to sleep in a tent?"

"No! Your only courtesy here is that you're not in cuffs. Got it?" His eyes are practically bugging out of his head right now, and if I wasn't so irritated, I might have been amused.

I want to argue. Every bone in my body tells me to rebel against this unfairness, but I don't. I don't want to be in cuffs. I've slept in worse places, I think darkly, remembering my cell in the Capitol. "Got it," I answer, looking at my feet to get my anger under control.

He stomps off and when I look back up, Finnick and the other man are here again. Finnick inclines his head and lead me over to his tent. I wait outside of it while the other guard stands with me, and then Finnick emerges with a piece of rope. He puts it in my hands, while I stare at it, confused.

"Why…?" I trail off, not exactly sure of how to proceed with my question.

He comes in to explain, "A few months ago, I was in a bad place. So I took to practicing tying knots to keep my sanity. It helped calm me down, keep my focus. Knot tying also helps your motor skills," he tells me with a nod.

"Fine motor skills," I mumble, thinking of one of my conversations with the doctor, who told me that I would have to work on maintaining my fine motor skills to get rid of the shaking and spasms altogether.

"Exactly!" He says, and for a moment, he smiles at me, his golden boy smile that I remember from what feels like a lifetime ago.

It makes me dredge up my own smile in response, and I tighten my hand on the rope, "Thank you," I tell him sincerely.

He gives me a light pat on the shoulder, "No problem."

I look around, and most people are getting ready to head into their tents, "Is it time to go to sleep already?" I question, looking up and noting that the sun hasn't even finished setting yet.

He nods, "We go to sleep pretty early here. Usually get up pretty early, too."

"Oh. All right," and I wonder what my routine is supposed to be.

Interrupting my wondering, Jackson comes up beside us, "Soldiers, your guard is done." And the unnamed soldier walks away, then Finnick gives a brief wave, and leaves as well.

Jackson doesn't acknowledge me this time, and she also goes her own way, leaving me with two more unnamed soldiers from Thirteen. I don't recognize them, and they don't look particularly thrilled with being my guard for the time being. Oh, well. They'll survive. _Or will they? Muahaha_, my inner voice jokes, and I want to laugh because it's been so long that that inner voice has said a comment like that, but I hold it in and just walk back to where my tent is still pitched.

One of the guards practically leaps in front of me and throws his arms out wide, "You can't go in there! Soldier Boggs orders."

"I'm just going to get the sleeping bag from inside. Or am I not allowed one of those, either?" I lift a brow in question and they both look at each other, then reluctantly move aside to let me crawl halfway in to snatch the rolled up sleeping bag.

I roll it out and settle myself inside of it as everyone else at camp settles themselves inside their tents, most of their little tent doors left unzippered. My guards sit nearby and make conversation between the two of them. I ignore them both and hold the rope in my hand, nestled in the sleeping bag and close my eyes.

But I can't sleep. For the first time, I'm not sleeping on a medical cot, and I can't relax. My body feels strung tight, and I don't know why. Maybe it's because I'm out in the real world, maybe it's because of the prolonged exposure to Katniss. Either way, I know I won't be getting any sleep. Sighing, I ignore the looks two of my guards whose names I don't know send me, and I sit up, pulling the sleeping bag up with me and practice tying knots.

I remember vaguely being at the knot-tying station pre-Games, but I have a hard time recalling exactly what to do with the rope in my hands. Old Mags tied great knots, I remember that without any fuzzy bits tainting it. Her gnarled hands moved like feathers over the rope. Mags, who sacrificed herself to save Katniss. I wonder how Finnick can still care so much for Katniss, even though Mags was his only family left. I don't even know if I'm able to care for anyone now, now that my whole family is gone, now that Portia is gone.

After I don't know how long, Katniss comes to keep watch, and immediately my chest constricts. I don't know how to recognize what this feeling is, because I don't know if I've ever felt it. It's not burning hatred, and it's not crushing sadness, and it's not an entirely bad feeling, either. Maybe it's an improvement. Regardless of what I'm feeling, the tension out there ratcheted up dramatically with her presence.

As much as I have liked to make myself think that she doesn't affect me anymore, I know it's not true. I think that she'll always make me feel… things I don't like to feel, however unidentified. It was all right back in Thirteen, when I didn't have to see her. But now, she's sitting right there, only a few feet away.

There are so many things I want to know, about her, about us, that neither the tapes they have from the Games or the doctor can tell me. I hate myself for knowing that I need her to tell me things I want to know about myself. _You don't need to know. Don't interact with her, Peeta_, my brain sternly orders me, so I continue to play with the rope.

But I can feel her presence sitting so close to me, even though she's feet away. It's like she's a fungus on my body – always with me, even though I want to get rid of it. I can't stop myself from throwing looks at her, which continue to make me feel that strange constriction on my chest from before, and sometimes I see her throwing looks my way, too.

I have many, many comments to make, so much to say to her, to ask her. Now, I give up on the rope and stare at her, trying to figure her out, and I think back to how the word that I still think of to define her is enigma, because this girl baffles me to no end. I can't keep my mouth shut, no matter how much I tell myself I should, "These last couple of years must have been exhausting for you. Trying to decide whether to kill me or not." The words sound like they should be an accusation, but they really aren't. I just want to know… anything. "Back and forth. Back and forth."

Her gaze whips up to meet mine and her gray eyes are angry, I can tell that much, but she seems to tell herself something that tames her anger as she answers me, "I never wanted to kill you. Except when I thought you were helping the Careers kill me. After that, I always thought of you as…" she pauses for a few seconds, and in those seconds, I feel my heart beat faster, thinking of what she's going to say. I didn't even know that I would care this much about what she saw me as, but I do, and I hold my breath until she settles on, "An ally."

The word bounces around in my brain and slips from my mouth with deliberation as I repeat it, "Ally." Enigma. I think of the other words I have in the Katniss area of my brain, muttering them out loud to make it easier to remember, "Friend," this one is strange to me, but I can remember us after the first Games, when I loved her but knew she didn't love me. I tried to be her friend and I think that I thought we succeeded.

"Lover," this one is a farce, and I know it. These are the memories I have now, however foggy, of us _together_ together. Kissing in the cave. Snuggling on the train. That one afternoon on the roof of the training center before the Quarter Quell. Those were the times where I thought that she loved me, too.

"Victor," this is an easy one. There is no doubt that she won the Hunger Games, never has been a doubt about that. But even more, a victor is a survivor and even when I hated her the most, I always knew she was a survivor. That she would do anything to live.

"Enemy," this word sears my mouth as I say it because I don't know how easy it would be to slip back into thinking that she's the biggest enemy I have, not the rebels or the Capitol, but Katniss. Sometimes, even know I know she doesn't want to kill me, I still think of her as the enemy.

"Fiancée," this one is one of the hardest for me to think of her as, because how could I have loved her so fiercely as to pretend to be her fiancée when she didn't love me? It's so hard for me to think that I would have married this girl when right now I don't really like being in the same room as her.

"Target," this is dark, and I think of how much I wanted to kill her. Of how I strangled her, of how I was convinced that she was the bad guy. The target of all of my hatred and anger.

"Mutt," this is on the repertoire just because of how much of a role it plays into where I am now. Just because I know she isn't a mutt now, doesn't mean it doesn't help me put together who Katniss Everdeen is.

"Neighbor," Victor's Village, we lived so close. I could see her house from mine, and there were times that I would wonder if she ever looked out her window and saw my house, thinking of me, the way I did her.

"Hunter," she could get a squirrel right through the eye with deadly accuracy. She and Gale… that was how they lived. She did business with my dad.

"Tribute," I can see her standing on the stage after she volunteered that first time, and I was so afraid. I remember feeling the panic and dread in my veins. I remember that I felt it again when they announced she would go back into the arena for the Quarter Quell.

This last word is heavy on my lips, "Ally. I'll add it to the list of words I use to try to figure you out." I guess it makes sense. It's less than a friend but more than a neighbor. That's how she saw me. Someone who was there for her, and I wonder if she was ever really there for me. Now, while she is looking at me with eyes devoid of anger and looking kind of pitiable, I feel awkward, so I look back at the rope hanging limply in my hands and fiddle with it. My voice is thick when I admit to her, "The problem is, I can't tell what's real anymore, and what's made up." And I don't know how to ever find out I those memories I have, even the ones I think are completely true, really are.

It's Finnick's voice that comes from the darkness and tells me, "Then you should ask, Peeta. That's what Annie does."

My hands tighten on the rope and my voice is harsh, "Ask who? Who can I trust?" I snap, and pull on both ends of the rope, until it hurts because the hurt is definitely real.

Jackson, sitting next to Katniss, speaks up for the first time, "Well, us for starters. We're your squad," she says.

If everything wasn't so suddenly serious, I might have laughed, "You're my guards." Not my friends, not companions by choice. People who are stuck with me and regard me with suspicion at every turn.

She shrugs, "That, too. But you saved a lot of lives in Thirteen. It's not the kind of thing we forget." No, it wouldn't be, would it?

But I don't know if I can ask anything, because yes, I don't completely remember saving lives in Thirteen – I think it was on a telecast maybe? That is still confusing for me, it's hard for me to think of that time in the Capitol. And there's really no one out there who can confirm or deny that stuff. Right?

I spend a long time trying to decide if I can trust their answers to even the simplest of questions. But after the deliberation, I conclude that even if I can't trust them, what's the harm in asking? With the list of questions long enough to go from here to Thirteen, I take even longer to decide what to ask. I think I should start with the basics, the very small details of my life that I'm missing or confused about, that are simple things most people don't even give thought to. I think that missing those pieces hurts more than some of the other things.

Finally, I look back up at Katniss, who is staring at the ground. I used to know everything about this girl, I used to have a read on her and know the small facts about her that made her Katniss. But now, I don't know anything. Trying to test out the fragments of my memory, I ask, "Your favorite color… it's green?"

She confirms it, though I know she thinks it's a strange thing to ask, then adds on something that throws me off, "And yours is orange."

What? "Orange?" I repeat, thinking that she has to be playing a trick on me, because orange is hideous. I just think of the too-bright color of the fruit and there's just no way I ever liked that color.

She corrects me, "Not bright orange. But soft, like the sunset. At least, that's what you told me once."

"Oh," and I close my eyes because I can picture it now. There are several very real memories I have at this moment, some of actually watching the sunset of that muted orange color billowing out over the sky, and the forgotten memory of telling her what my favorite color was. I don't remember the whole scene, but I can see snippets of it in my head, like I know it was while we are on the Victory Tour. My voice is near a whisper when I tell her, "Thank you."

I expected her to be done and stop there, but then her mouth opens and words just tumble out, "You're a painter. You're a baker. You like to sleep with the windows open. You never take sugar in your tea. And you always double-knot your shoelaces," before she even finishes the words, she is up and running full-force into her tent, and I think I saw tears brimming in her eyes.

I don't feel sorry for being that source of emotional pain, but I don't feel good, either. But I don't want to think about her right now, I want to think about me. About the pieces of Peeta that I just got, small bits of information that would serve no purpose to Katniss if she was lying about them.

I knew I was a painter, an artist. That, I don't think I could ever forget. The same goes for the part about being a baker. But the other three bits, they give me something to latch on to, something to know about me that I wouldn't have been able to know otherwise. The sugar in my tea, man, that makes sense. Whenever the doctor had given me tea, I knew something was off, something I didn't particularly care for. It's the sugar.

And the shoelaces. I look beside me, where my shoes are sitting, as I took them off before climbing into the sleeping bag. The laces are double-knotted. I reach out and touch them with my fingertip. I remembered that I like to double-know without really remembering. I wonder if there are other things like that, too.

Thinking about all of this, all of these details that I've been missing, I stare up at the sky, and feel slightly clearer than I have in ages. Somewhere along the line of thinking, I fall asleep.

When I wake up the next morning, I feel a little disoriented, and I panic for a moment before remembering where I am. Slowly, I sit up and see one of the unnamed Thirteen soldiers sitting there, next to Jackson. As she sees me waking up, her hand tightens on the handle of her gun and she asks, "Do you remember who you are?"

Peeta Mellark. Might be delusional, probably not. Most hated person in the squad, "Yes."

"Do you remember why you're here?"

"Yes, because Coin wants better propaganda," I inform her, "I'm not mentally challenged. And you don't need to treat me like I am." I'm impressed with myself because I managed to say the words without sounding rude.

Her hand slowly retreats from the gun, "Yes, I know. How are you feeling this morning?"

"All right, I guess." I think of last night, before I fell asleep, think of Katniss and what she told me. Then I look around and realize she's not there, and neither are Gale or Finnick, "Where are the rest of the bunch?"

She shrugs and says, "Off with the cameras." I think I detect a small eye roll in there, and I wonder if maybe she doesn't like Katniss and the others as much as she's supposed to.

"Oh." I simply reply, and push myself out of the sleeping bag, reaching for my boots and putting them on.

She's watching me as I lace them up, "Double-knot… did that help you? What Katniss told you last night about yourself?"

I think of all of the techniques the doctor tried in Thirteen, and how he gave me back the facts of my general personality and big things that I should know. But, in a way, last night was better than knowing those big things. "When Katniss answered my questions last night… I – it really cleared some things up for me. I just have trouble now, knowing what's real and what's not real, so…" I trail off, not knowing how to tell this stranger that I just don't know completely who I am, and I won't fully know until I have all of those small pieces.

"Why don't we try that, then?" She asks, leaning forward to brace her elbows on her knees.

Confused, I look at her, "Try what?"

"Try… Real or Not Real. You ask me a question you're not sure of, and I'll tell you what I know," she says and looks pleased with herself for coming up with it. I'm kind of excited about it, too.

We're about to start when the Star Squad comes strolling back in, and while Jackson fills them in on the game, I look at the unnamed soldier who has been paying rapt attention to our conversation. My first question I ask him isn't really a question, but an assumption, "Most people from Twelve were killed in the fire."

He looks around, making eye contact with Jackson before answering, "Real. Less than nine hundred of you made it to Thirteen alive."

Now I think of something else. Something that the doctor could never really clear up for me, despite his efforts, "The fire was my fault." I caused it because Snow wasn't happy with me. If it wasn't Katniss' fault like they tried to make me think in the Capitol, it had to be mine. Right?

But the soldier shakes his head, "Not real. President Snow destroyed Twelve the way he did Thirteen, to send a message to the rebels," he informs me.

I don't know why I find myself believing his words, but a weight seems to have been lifted off my chest. After a few seconds, the soldier stands to walk over to Jackson, who orders, "Soldier Odair, you will sit with Peeta now and answer any and all questions. After that will be Soldier Everdeen and later tonight will be Soldier Hawthorne. Soldier Hansen, sit with Odair."

She then leaves, and Katniss and Gale both give me a long look before turning and walking away as well.

I focus my attention back on Finnick and ask him, "What do you really know about me?" Because, if my memory serves at all, Finnick doesn't really know all that much about my life.

He makes himself comfortable across from me, "Well, if you wonder about anything from either of your Games, I can tell you. I was a mentor in the first, and, as you know, tribute in the Quarter Quell."

Slowly I nod, because there are questions I have about the Games. Not the big things, like about me and Katniss, because those are all on tape that I've seen over and over again. But other things. I ask, "In the first Games… I teamed up with the Careers by making them a deal?"

I know I should know this, but all of my time in the arena, with or without Katniss, seems to be foggy to me. He has a ghost of a smile on his face, "Real. You trapped Cato, and then made the deal."

"What was the deal?" This part, I don't remember at all.

"You offered to help them find and kill Katniss." He tells me.

His words shock me, because I can't imagine the Peeta I used to be doing something like that at all. Back then, I never would have harmed Katniss, "Did I… why?"

Now he shakes his head, "It was a ploy. You were leading them in the wrong direction, to protect her."

Oh. That sounds more like the memories I have of me from before. "Okay." I'm quiet for a few minutes as I try to think, and out of nowhere, a boy's face pops into my head, "I made a friend."

Finnick scratches his chin, "Real, you did, I think. Yeah, his name was Fitch or something like that."

Fitch sounds right. "What district was he from?"

"Ah… well, he worked with bombs and electronics, so I'm going to say Three." He says, and I can tell he's unsure but at least he's trying.

"I killed the girl from District Eight," all I know about this one is that I can still see her face sometimes when I close my eyes.

"Not real. Cato cut her, and you went back and held her hands while she died." He says to me. Every time he gives me an answer, snippets of the memory comes back.

"I killed Foxface." Now, I see her body being lifted into the air, and remnants of the guilt in my chest.

He hesitates and seems to weigh out his sentence in his head before saying, "Real. Kind of. You picked berries, bad berries, but you thought they were good. She followed you and ate them."

Okay. That one is confusing, but I'm not going to question it, because there's so much more to know. "In the Quell… we bonded one night. You told me you understood me?"

This time he nods slowly, remembering, "Real. I understood how much you loved Katniss because of how much I love Annie."

Now, I think of the comment I made to him that time we sat together at lunch in Thirteen. At the time, I didn't feel bad for saying it. But now, I do. Now, I think I've come to like Finnick again, in a way. Apologies haven't come very easy to me since I was being held in the Capitol. I don't think I've said sorry for one thing since then because I haven't felt remorse, but right now, I do. "I said something rude a few weeks ago at lunch and you were very upset with me," I say in the same time as the questions I've been asking.

He narrows his eyes but slowly answers, "Real."

I tangle my fingers together briefly before looking up and saying, "I'm sorry. I – I didn't mean it."

There's a few seconds of silence before he hesitantly touches my shoulder in a pat, "Forgiven. I'm sorry, too, you know. I'm sorry we let the Capitol get you."

I shrug, and my voice is harsher than I mean it to be when I say, "It's what I would have wanted, before. I would have wanted you to help Katniss more than me… real or not real?"

It's with a sad smile that he responds, "Definitely real."

He and I play this game up until dinner, and when we stop to eat, I can remember my own Games so clearly now. It's a good feeling, to have these memories without having to be shown them on video tape.

The meal is a quick one, and this time I don't keep my head down, but I watch everyone. But one of the men, I think his name is Pollux or something or the sort, catches my eye. He has the strangest way of taking a bite, chewing, and swallowing that I've ever seen. Except, I feel like I have seen it before, but I can't place it. But soon enough, he finishes his meal, puts his plate away and walks back to his tent.

Everyone follows suit, and when I get back to where I sit in front of my useless tent, Katniss is there, looking anxious, sitting next to a guard. I gather it's her turn to play the game with me, which is a good thing, because most of my confusion is about her. Not the love I had for her, no, because I know all I want to know about that, but just about… her. About what makes her this person I used to love.

I can see that she's nervous, but I am, too. I'm nervous to sit with her, nervous to feel her in such close contact with me, because she makes me feel these weird emotions. But I can't give this opportunity up, not when I have the chance to know all of these blank spots of my memory that she can help with.

So I push down this dread and anxiety that's all mixed with something I can't describe and I clench my fists tightly together to stay focused on the questions instead of what I'm feeling. The first question I have is about a memory I have of her while on the Victory Tour. I can clearly see her makeup and how her hair was done up, but the dress escapes me, "The color of the dress you wore in Seven… it was white?"

"Umm," she scrunches up her eyes in this weird manner that I think I used to find cute, then she says, "Not real. I wore white in Eight, but yellow in Seven."

Now I see it. That wasn't so hard, was it? "Okay." While on the subject of the Victory Tour, I ask, "You faked a talent in the Tour. Cinna made you clothes to show as your own."

She lets out a nervous laugh, "Real. That was real." But doesn't go into farther detail. I guess I don't really need it.

After a few minutes of thinking of what to say next, I settle on, "You are very partial to cheese buns."

"Real. You used to make them for me," she tells me, then gives me a questioning look.

I know that she doesn't understand why I'm asking such mundane things, but she just wouldn't be able to understand. If she didn't know the simplest parts from her life and memory, these wouldn't seem so superficial to her. Even the small things like this count, I've learned. They can count even more than the big things.

"For the last few years at the reaping, you wore a blue dress." This I think I know, because I can picture it in my head. But I want to be sure.

She nods, confirming it, "Real. It belongs to my mother."

Right. "And… you used to wear a red one, when we were younger?"

"Not real, I used to wear a green one." She says, and as the minutes go by, she appears to be less nervous.

"We were in the same math class together, when we were little." I say, and wait for her to tell me whether or not I've just made it up.

But she nods, "We were. Only once though, because after that year, you moved up in the levels, and I stayed at the average one."

I vaguely remember Lucern ribbing at me for being a geek and being put in the high class, and the memory makes me smile briefly before I ask, "And the teacher's name was Miss Levinson?"

Now she shakes her head, "Miss Levinson taught English. I think the math teacher's name was Miss Greyjoy."

I think I remember that. It takes me a bit longer to think of another question before I ask, "I was teaching Prim how to bake?"

Now, a smile, however small, takes over her features, "Real. You last taught her how to make frosting, I think."

Right, yes, I remember that. Dark chocolate frosting was the last real lesson we had. She was a natural. She was also a natural with helping their mom, I remember that, too. I think Prim and I had a bond, but I'm not sure… "Prim, she liked me, right?"

The smile is still there at the tips of her lips, "Real. She kind of adored you."

Well that makes one Everdeen woman who used to adore me, at least. Katniss doesn't spend much more time with me, but even though I was nervous in the beginning, this is the best it could have gone with her. I think this little session did a lot more than most of the hours locked up watching footage of her. I feel… I feel like I kind of know her now. Like I can remember and understand how I thought of her as a person without hating her.

It's only a minute before Gale takes her place, and immediately, a bad feeling settles over my stomach. I don't know what it is about this guy, I just can't shake the feeling that I really hate him. Even now, that I feel indifferent to Katniss, I just don't like him.

But I make myself get over it because he has answers to questions I still need to know. With a deep breath, I tell myself that I got along with him when I was in love with Katniss, so I can do it now. Or at least fake it. So I do, and I start asking him questions while most of the others go to bed, save for a Thirteen soldier sitting next to Gale.

"People bought their soap from the Snow's shop, back home." I say, not feeling confident about it, but it's something I want to know.

He shakes his head, "Not real, the Snow family sold shoes. For soap, people mostly went to the Tulin's."

That's right. The Tulin's shop was two doors down from my parents. "The school was located equidistant from the Seam and the town square."

He gives me an odd look but answers, "I guess so. I mean, real. I'm not sure if it's completely equal both ways, but it's about."

"The miners went to work every morning just after sunrise," this one, I think I know is true. Because I feel like I remember going there for a few months after I won the Hunger Games, I just don't remember why…

Gale answers, "Real." But doesn't expand.

Even so, I continue, "And your dad was a miner."

Now he looks at me darkly, and I feel like this might be why I hate him so much… because he's terrifying and I get the distinct feeling that he really wouldn't mind killing me, here and now. "Real."

But I push my limits, and I say, "He died with Katniss' dad in a mine explosion."

Now his teeth are practically grounding together as he growls, "Real."

It appears that I struck a nerve, and for some reason, that makes me very satisfied. Shifting onto my back, I get under my sleeping back and we're silent for a while as I feel myself start to drift to sleep. Before I completely fall asleep, I ask one last thing, "You and I were in love with the same girl and managed not to hate each other. Real or not real?"

Gale gives the tiniest hint of a whisper of a smile, "Well, there were a few times where I didn't particularly care for you… real."

And that's the last thing I remember before I'm woken by a voice standing above me saying, "Soldier Mellark, time to rise."

Sitting, I rub the sleep from my eyes as a plate of breakfast is shoved at me before I've even sat up, "What is going on?" I ask Boggs, who is the one standing above me.

"We're using you today to make some propos," he says, and I can tell he's not happy about this, but I'm assuming he's going it under very strict orders.

After I push myself up, I take the plate from him, "Okay. Apparently the ones you've been sending out so far are very lackluster and uninspiring. From what I've heard."

I only say this, though it is true, because I like to see that vein pop in his forehead when he gets really frustrated with me. "Just eat and get ready. We're heading out this afternoon."

Aside from the one soldier from Thirteen assigned to watch me this morning – my guard has been downgraded – I spend the next few hours alone, practicing tying knots in the rope again. I've gotten pretty good at it, and then, eventually, I'm called over to be informed of what the plan is for the propo today, "It involved actual danger!" one member of the crew, whose name I think is Cressida, says.

Whoopee.

I don't pay that much attention, as I'm more distracted as they suit us up like we going into real combat here. For a moment, Boggs takes me aside, and glares me down, "How much of this do you think you can handle?"

I nervously look out into the block that has actual bombs and such hidden inside, "I can handle everything," I tell him, and I hope it's true. But I haven't been in a high pressure situation since I left the Capitol, so nothing is really a guarantee.

He gives me a weary look but sighs, "Fine." Then he reaches behind him and pulls out a gun- my gun – from his belt, and hands it to me, giving me one of his stern looks again, and telling me just an octave below shouting level, "It's only loaded with blanks!"

I shrug and take the gun from him, and it feels like a strange foreign weight in my hand. I think, once upon a time not too long ago, this might have angered me. As it is, I feel a slight buzz of irritation whisper through me, but it's easily squashed, and I shrug, "I'm not much of a shot anyway."

As the words die on my lips, I'm drawn once more to Pollux, who is standing nearby and I watch the manner in which he swallows several times because I know I've seen that somewhere, but I don't remember… then, as I watch him silently open his mouth in a yawn, then swallow again, it hits me. Darius, I remember, Darius used to swallow just like that. The sudden memory of it confuses me, angers me, and I step closer to him to get a better look, "You're an Avox, aren't you? I can tell by the way you swallow. There were two Avoxes with me in prison." I can see them, clear as day now, "Darius and Lavinia," I remember her taking my hand and spelling her name on it, "But the guards mostly called them the redheads."

I remember when I first saw her, and then, later, how shocked we'd all been to see Darius, "They'd been our servants in the Training Center, so they arrested them, too." I can picture it, standing there, watching as Lavinia died right away, but how it took Darius days to finish off. I recount this for the people standing in front of me, thinking about it, confusing myself, "They wanted me to see it," it occurs to me now. That's the only reason any of it was done, because they wanted to hurt me. Mission accomplished. Right? I think it's real. But no one is answering. They all just stare at me, with dumb looks on their faces.

Their stares make me feel panicked, because why aren't they answering? They answered everything for me last night and now they're just done? I need to know! I need to know is this is real! "Real or not real?" I ask, and try to be calm about it. But they all just keep staring at me like fools and they're freaking me out, and I can feel my heart jackhammering against my ribs, as the memories of the Capitol start to flood in and I demand again, "Real or not real?!"

Finally, Boggs speaks up, "Real. At least to the best of my knowledge… real."

Finally. The words help me fend off some of the memories trying to get at me, and I consciously make an effort to untighten my shoulders, letting them sag, "I thought so." I squint my eyes, trying to distinguish how I thought that was real compared to the memories I didn't think were real, "There was nothing… shiny about it." It's the shiny, tinted memories that always turn out to be the worst ones, the fake ones.

Thinking about them starts to freak me out, and I have to reign myself back in, I wiggle my toes and flex my fingers, trying to keep my calm, "Ten fingers, ten toes, heart beating, legs walking. Ten fingers, ten toes," I repeat and wander away so they don't see me while I'm like this. That's not going to do anything to help them trust me.

After a few minutes, Boggs calls out to me, to get my attention, and when I look over, I see Katniss and Gale in an embrace. It shouldn't bother me, not now, but it does. Tightening my hands on my gun, I say one last time, "Ten fingers, ten toes," and walk over.

He scrutinizes me, as if trying to get into my head, then asks, "Are you going to be able to handle this?"

I look beyond his shoulder and see that the two are no longer touching, and my stomach manages to untie the knots it's gotten into, "Yes," I affirm. I can do this. It wasn't the best way to start out, but I can.

I manage to follow direction in the shot, but it's hard. I didn't know that being in the thick of things, in the thick of violence would really affect me, not after all of the therapies and time that has passed, but it does. I just try to keep a cool head, repeating to myself the ten fingers and toes, telling myself that I am okay. All I do is exactly what is asked, nothing more, nothing less. They order me to grimace and look disturbed, and it's not hard because I am. I'm glad when Boggs calls us away, even if it is to yell at us for not having our acting up to snuff, because I can't handle anymore right now. I need a break from all of this destruction that's going on, even if it's fake.

All chances of getting myself under control are gone when I hear a thunderous explosion, and, like some sort of machine, against all of my inner protests, something in my brain starts to shift and I'm not me anymore.

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><p><strong>I'm sorry it took me twice as long to update, my summer has been super hectic! Anyway, I tried to make it up to you by writing the longest chapter I've written for any of my fics =) Thanks to everyone for reading and especially those who review! Please let me know what you think!<strong>


	14. Monster

Immediately, I collapse onto the ground, shielding my hands over my head, distantly hearing the bombs going off, but that's all I can hear. I know, I know in the greatest logical part of my mind that I am Peeta Mellark, post being caught by the Capitol and that I'm okay now. I'm okay now. _I'm okay now_.

But I'm not, because when I open my eyes I see the ground exploding around me, and trees shaking and falling, and I'm back in the arena of the Quarter Quell, when the world was literally blowing up around me. Terror makes me freeze and I close my eyes and clench them hard, squeezing my hands closed, too, until my nails bite into my palms and I register that I just made myself bleed, but I can hardly register the pain.

With great effort, I open my eyes and feet away from me I see Boggs on the ground. Just as I realize the fact that he _has no legs_ there is another explosion, destroying the world around us. There is blood, so much blood. Closing my eyes, I tell myself that –

I don't know what to tell myself. Because all I can see is Doctor Cavanaugh, and all I can feel is the pain of being injected again with the tracker jacker venom that takes away any light I ever had left in my world.

I can _hear_ people yelling, screaming, and I know that's part of the world that I need to hold on to. But I can't because soon, whatever words they are saying turns into screams. Scary, animal sound screaming that I recognize as Darius as he get electrocuted. Then they are worse: the screams of Portia and the venom feeling and the sight of the Doctor and Big Guy and the fire of District Twelve spin in circles above my head, taunting me.

The world shakes again, knocking into my mind a voice, so morphed now that it sounds like a demon in my head, screaming at me, "Katniss is guilty. It's her fault. She did this."

Biting my lip, I shake my head, faintly feeling the hard concrete below me, and the voice just gets stronger and stronger with all of the chaos in real world. I see the electrocutions happening, the deaths. So much blood. Katniss. Katniss. Katniss.

With Doctor Cavanaugh's voice whispering through my mind, I have flash images of Portia, my mom, my dad, my Thyler, Lucern, and Hailey. My baby niece. Opening my eyes, all I can see is blood and pieces of flesh littering the world around me. Did my family bleed like that? Did they get ripped apart like that? Was that what their worlds came to in the end?

_Yes. _

"_Who did this, Peeta? Give me the name!"_ my eardrums hurt from the loudness of the voice yelling this in my ears. Blood and pain and death and venom. Confusion and hurt and anger and…

"Katniss."

As if there is a click, a change completely taking over and shifting into place, my eyes snap open. All those bad feelings, the ones I've felt for months, the ones I felt in the Capitol and the ones I was trying to get rid of in District Thirteen are gone, because finally, I have clarity again: Katniss.

Katniss causes pain and death and confusion and hurt and anger. She is poisonous and she ruined my life and the lives of everyone I ever cared about, and the solution to everything is just so pure and strong: she must go.

When you have an infection, you get it treated and get rid of it. When there is a poisonous snake bite, you suck out the poison. And that's what I need to do for the good of every single human being living in Panem: suck out the poison. Get rid of the infection. Get rid of Katniss.

With precision, feeling energized, I push myself up. What I am going to do literally is for the best of every human being in the entire country. How many other people can say that? The weight of the world is on _my_ shoulders, and if no one else wants to do the dirty work, which, clearly, they don't, I will have to.

Cracking my neck from side to side, it takes me a moment to take in my surroundings. There is darkness rising and they are trying to escape it. _She_ is trying to escape it, but she deserves to be right in the thick of it. Katniss Everdeen, dragging Boggs, who is practically dead, does not deserve to leave the darkness, for the sole reason of all of the darkness she has caused so many others. Myself included.

Before she can get too far, I take off at a run, feeling for the gun at my side. It's loaded with blanks, I remember, but that's okay because I don't want to take her life with an impersonal bullet. It has to be personal, because of the love that she never had for me, for the friendships she'd taken away from me, and for all of the utter shit my life has come to. I hate her and I literally do not understand how other people don't.

As soon as she's within my arms grasp, I reach out and get a good grip on the collar of her shirt, yanking backwards with such a force I surprise even myself, and I let go in time to see her crash to the ground before I descend upon her so she can't get away. There is no getting away this time.

I know the others will irrationally try to come to her aid, so quickly, I lift my empty gun in the air, already picturing more blood now: her blood. Her gray eyes stare up at me, so large in her face, and I can see them plead for her life. Old Peeta, the fool that he was, would have taken one look into those eyes and cared. He would have died for those eyes.

What an _idiot_, I think, and I bring my gun down with all of the strength I can muster. But just as my gun gets close enough to her that I cannot change its place of impact, her head rolls and as my gun hits the ground, I feel the amount of power I used to slam it down vibrate up the metal and into my arms, making me feel like jello.

As I try to lift my arms up once more – this time she won't get away – a force I hadn't seen coming blindsides me, tackling me to the ground and letting Katniss get away. The impact of landing on the rough concrete and the compact man landing on top of me knocks all of the breath out of my body, but I'm determined, invigorated, to finish what I've started and I'm not going to give up just because these people are too stupid to see what a danger Katniss really is.

I realize that this is Mitchell, and I feel a swell of gratification knowing that he is only here because he is the "star shooter of the Star Squad." The man is not a fighter. He holds a gun and shoots it, but he cannot win in an actual fight. He tries to lift my arms and pin them into the concrete, but he's clearly never had brothers or wrestled with them, because this leaves his chest to be lifted in front of my face, and with all of my might, I rear up and slam the top of my head into his neck.

His grip on my hands instantly loosens and I can hear him gasping to breathe, making his body shift even more, almost completely off of me, enabling me to get up my feet and land them solidly on his stomach. When I'm sure I have a secure, firm contact point, I kick up my feet up.

It's a move my brothers taught me, and taught it well, because he goes flying over my head. I meant to dive after Katniss as soon as he was flung off of me, but I stand, mesmerized as Mitchell lands on a booby trapped spot on the street and his body is jerked off of the ground in a barbed wire net. Blood drips down, and it's not until I look down at my hands and see that I was splattered in some that I remember my mission. Blood. Katniss.

But as soon as I turn back in her direction, ready to fight through whoever might be protecting her now, soldiers from Thirteen are on me. _No_. I'm strong. I'm stronger than they are! Hands grab at my shoulders, my arms, my fists. Someone else comes from behind me and locks their arm around my neck, and just as someone kicks out my feel, I go down.

Pain erupts from around my neck and I can't breathe, and for a moment I lose my mission because my vision is starting to become hazy. By the time I get my mission and my ability to breathe unhindered back, it's too late, because they are already dragging me. Too fast for my feet to be able to find purchase on the ground below, so I'm unable to actually stand on my own, and my shoulders feel like they're being ripped out of their sockets because the two men dragging/carrying me along are only holding me up by my arms.

But I struggle against them. I have to, because if I don't then what do I have? The only thing I know right now is that everyone is following Katniss, which is such a stupid idea. Haven't they seen how much suffering she's caused?

The only thing my struggling gets me is an even sharper hold as they continue to drag. I don't know where we are, but just as my rage starts to leave my veins, I see Jackson come at me with the cuffs. White hot fear tears through me, but I can't get away from her and once they're on, I start to plead that I'm getting better, but they don't hear me, and they force me into a room.

Only, once I settle with my hands cuffed in front of me, this is not a separate room. This is… I think a closet? But my breath becomes erratic because all I can see is darkness. Cuffed, alone, in the dark, just like I was in the Capitol. My cell. This is my cell, my thoughts start to come in the scary Peeta voice, but I make him go away. This isn't my cell and I'm not hijacked anymore and I'm not being held and injected.

But I'm being held against my will in the small, pitch dark, enclosed space, and all I can imagine is Big Guy coming to get me and making me sit in the chair, making me get some more tracker jacker venom. _Please no_. The more these thoughts start to seep in, the harder it is to keep them out, and I don't want to go back to that place. I can't.

I go to pound on the door with my fists, but it's ineffective because of the way they have me tied down, so I get on my back and pound with me feet. "Don't keep me in here! Please!" I can hear the desperation in my own voice. I continue to kick as hard as I can, but the door is not moving. I start to think I can smell the scents of the Capitol cell – hospital and death and bodily functions. _No_. "Please!" I call again but they don't answer me.

My feet start to feel weak and sore from all of the kicking and it's hard for me to breathe because my throat is getting clogged with that burning feeling that crying brings. I don't want the tears to leak out of my eyes, but I can't help it. I'm trapped, again, and I feel that if I close my eyes for an instant, I'm going to be right back in the Capitol.

But I feel too weak to keep kicking. As soon as I was energized what feel like hours ago, but was probably only minutes, I feel drained. Gently, I continue to kick, just to remind them that I'm in here and because I need to get out. And in my head, I start to hear Johanna's cries and whimpers, and I whisper, "Please?" once more before exhaustion overcomes me.

I start to come to god only knows how long later, and I don't feel any more alert than I did before I passed out. I'm startled into consciousness by the frightening beeping sound that a television makes when it's being powered on by the Capitol rather than the homeowner. It's the sound that it makes every night during the broadcast of the Games.

Even though I take in a startled gasp, no one notices, and I take the opportunity to look around me. I'm not in a closet anymore, I note with intense relief. I'm draped, somewhat awkwardly, over a lumpy couch. I have to blink a few times to see clearly, but when I do, I note that everyone is staring unhappily at the television. So I do, too.

And I see myself from an outsider perspective. A lump forms in my throat when I see what I've done, objectively. A _killed_ a man, because he was protecting another human life. Despite that it was Katniss… I killed an innocent man. A good man, who was fighting for what he believed in. I watch myself throw him right into the barbed wire net and not feel remorse. My hands start to shake and I feel sweaty and nervous. That can't be right. I was so sure what I was doing was the right thing to do…

Then they replay it. Once, twice, a third time. I see the same footage again and again, and I see the fear in Katniss' eyes as I was about to bring my gun down on her. Misery takes me over because Katniss isn't the monster, and I can see that right now, clear as day. I am. The boy in that footage isn't tampered with, and I remember being him, I remember feeling that way. Who knows if what will set me off next or if they'll be able to stop me next?

I can't become that again. That blonde haired, blue eyed, crazy person is a monster. A murderous monster. I don't want to be a monster again.

I tune back into their conversation in time to hear Gale ask, "… what's our next move?"

It's hard for me to even hold back a snort of laughter borne out of guilt, "Isn't it obvious?" Everyone's eyes look to me and I can see their emotions clearly reflected in all of them. The uncertainty, the terror. It shames me. My father raised me better than this. I _am_ better than this. At least… I was.

I need them to know that I'm in my right mind and that I'm okay. I'm stable now. So I push myself up so I can sit, even though the cuffs dig into my wrists and my shoulders feel achy from when I was being dragged earlier, but I get there. And by the time I know what I'm going to say, I know that it has to be done.

Forcing myself to look strictly at Gale because he understands me. Even though he might not like it and neither do I, I feel that on an elemental level, when I was the old me, we had an understanding. And I know he will do anything to protect Katniss, so appealing to that, I make the words come out of my mouth, "Our next move… is to kill me."

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><p><strong>Hey everyone! After logging on and seeing that I had many, many messages regarding the continuation of this story, I think I should let you all know that this <em>will be<em> updated and finished. I had previously written several of the future chapters, and when I was going to start posting again, my entire hard drive was wiped. It's my own fault, because I knew my laptop had been having issues and I didn't back up my work, and then one day, it just would not turn on.**

**So while I had a loaner computer, I got a story idea for a different fandom, as some of you have noticed I started a new story. The only reason I have chapters to post for that is because I wrote those on my loaner.**

**Meanwhile, back on my doomed laptop that I just got back, I not only lost all of my creative writing, including my future _Real or Not Real_ chapters, but my writing that I actually _need_ to replicate, such as my thesis paper and all of my old essays to use for my capstone portfolio. These are all of my college career's history lost, and that's what I've been working on for the majority of my time.**

**This story _will_ be finished because I'm not just going to abandon something I have spent so much time on, that so many people follow. But the only promise I can make if that more updates will happen in the summer, when I don't have to think about school. I'm going to try to write other chapters before then and hopefully have a sporadic update. But I just wanted you to know that it's not abandoned, in case you still want to stick by the story and me, it's not abandoned.**

**So... all of that being said, thank you to everyone who is still with me and my Real or Not Real journey. Thanks for reviewing, and please let me know what you think of this chapter!**


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